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  • Conan O'Brien is a professional nerd and has web series called "Serious Jibber-Jabber" where he conducts hour or longer interviews with guests on subjects that interest him like history and early Rock and Roll.
    • There's also his "Clueless Gamer" segments, although it's more of a testament to how much he doesn't play video games, because more often than not, he's, well, pretty clueless when he plays them (and the result is usually pretty funny), and while he jokes that he's not interested in them and "kind of hate[s] them" at the start of each segment, he clearly enjoys himself while playing them afterwards, and he must have SOME kind of respect for the genre to repeatedly devote show time to them.
  • Stephen Colbert is not only a huge fan of fantasy/SF, he is considered one of the world's foremost experts on The Lord of the Rings (he read the novels long before the movies came out and even got a cameo in The Desolation Of Smaug) and played Dungeons & Dragons in high school. He also owns Captain America's actual proper shield, which Cap supposedly left to Stephen in his will and, on finding out that Barack Obama collects comics, signed a copy of the Colbert-Spider-Man crossover for him. It is being kept on the Shelves of Honor until such time as Obama takes the bait and comes on the show to get it.
    • Peter Jackson even called him "The biggest Tolkien geek I've ever met."
    • He also owns Aragorn's sword, given to him by Aragorn himself (or Viggo, same difference), and schooled James Franco at The Lord of the Rings trivia.
      • The Queen of Jordan knighted Colbert with that sword. That's right. Stephen Colbert, knighted with Andúril.
    • "Owlbears!"
    • Some CNN reporters needed a stock image of Satan as the backdrop for their coverage of the 06/06/06 "hysteria." They used an illustration of the Balrog from a 1977 The Lord of the Rings calendar, prompting Stephen to explain, "Devils and Balrogs are totally different. Devils are angels who refused to serve God and instead followed Satan into hell. Balrogs are Maiar who refused to serve Eru and instead followed Morgoth into Thangorodrim. Get your facts straight, CNN!" The best part? Stephen noticed it himself. He just happened to recognize the illustration because he has the calendar.
    • In this clip Stephen shows off some of his Lord of the Rings collection including a huge statue of Sauron, a replica of the ring of power, and a limited edition Lord of the Rings Pinball Machine.
    • On BFF Jon Stewart's last episode of The Daily Show, Colbert (not at all in character) explicitly compared the two of them to Frodo and Sam, respectively. The collective tears of the show's viewers at that point could have probably drowned Middle-Earth.
    • And just to underline the overall point, he listens to Neutral Milk Hotel. Huzzah! And The Decemberists!
    • He also gave a big Shout-Out to bronies as well. Though he later admitted he didn't actually know what the term meant.
    • He even hosted the San Diego Comic-Con panel for The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power and he might even get a cameo in the next seasons.
  • Drew Carey was a fan of The Sims and was going to appear in a "Superstar" expansion for The Sims 2, but the expansion wouldn't be finished.
  • British TV presenter and radio DJ Jonathan Ross is a big comics fan. He auctioned his copy of ''Amazing Fantasy'' #15 for charity, presented a BBC documentary about Steve Ditko (which ended with him and Neil Gaiman finally meeting the artist), and also co-presented an award at the San Diego Comic-Con alongside (or should I say... face to face with) Neil Gaiman. His 1988 Channel 4 TV series The Incredibly Strange Film Show was a well-informed guide to international cult film directors - including Tsui Hark, Ray Dennis Steckler, and Ted Mikels - who were, in the pre-internet age, still obscure in the UK outside a tiny minority of film geeks.
    • He also hosted a BBC3 show called Japanorama, which is exactly what it sounds like. And yes, it included interviews with various mangaka and Japanese film directors.
      • His Crowning Moment of Geekdom had to be the occasion, on his Friday night BBC1 chat show, he convinced Ricky Gervais to do his embarrassing David Brent dance. Gervais was immediately mortified, prompting Wossy to quip: "I'm Superman, You're Mister Mxyzptlk and I just made you say your name backwards twice." Three audience members get it.
  • Jon Stewart, in response to Fox claiming "Who knows what went on behind closed doors" when Obama met Hugo Chavez, said something along the lines of "And now marks Fox News moving from political commentary... to fanfiction."
    • Jon's also a gamer, and has talked about being a Mac user and playing Doom with one hand (so the other one can man a bong) in his standup. (See also the Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson entry below.)
    • Jon also made a number of (fairly accurate) Dungeons & Dragons references in response to Rumsfeld saying you couldn't just "wave a magic wand" and make everything better in Iraq. "Remember; you're either with us, or you're with the orcs."
    • And he discusses Man-Bat with a guest.
    • Second-hand example- his son is a fan of Power Rangers, and Jon has thus made a few references to it on his show- once getting the chance to bring it up in context while discussing a political scandal that involved series creator Haim Saban, and also using phrases from Power Rangers Jungle Fury to psych himself up for election coverage.
    • He's apparently a Professional Wrestling fan and once had Mick Foley as a guest to do a promo for him.
    • When Herman Cain suspended his campaign with a quote from Pokémon 2000, Jon and the rest of the crew responded as only they could.
    • Jon also confessed to be a New York Times crosswords junkie.
    • He's a massive fan of Gravity Falls, to the point where he managed to convince creator Alex Hirsch to wrap up the series properly instead of ending it on a Cliffhanger. He would eventually appear as a guest star in the second to last episode.
  • In his nightly news program, Keith Olbermann frequently quotes or alludes to Monty Python (and has had John Cleese as a guest more than once), and criticized dire right-wing projections concerning President Obama's budget as requiring truly staggering precognition: to wit, the projections extend through 2080, "seventeen years after we first make contact with the planet Vulcan" (according to Star Trek: First Contact). He also loves baseball and has one of the largest baseball card collections in the country. He also runs a blog for Major League Baseball
    • Not entirely surprising, since he started his broadcasting career as a TV sportscaster.
    • He's also been known to make (relatively obscure and Shallow Parody-averting) Harry Potter references.
      • Observe this segment, wherein Keith guesses at the end of book seven (turns out he's a Snape fan).
    • And the movie references, dear God, the movie references...
    • He usually introduces his Oddball segment by noting the anniversary of some obscure, often times nerdy piece of trivia. As well, during one particular clip featuring a home-made beer serving robot he quipped: "You just give the command and Optimus Prime here will pour you a cold one."
    • He's also a fan of MST3K, probably the quintessential geek show.
    • In his Special Comment on New York mayor Michael Bloomberg's treatment of the Occupy Wall Street movement, he pointed out the irony of New York city bending over backwards to accommodate the filming of the new Batman movie, while expressing hostility towards its own citzens' right to freedom of assembly. His critique of the filmshoot is slightly undermined, however, by his repeated references to the film as the "Godddamn Batman" movie.
  • Mayim Bialik, who plays Amy on The Big Bang Theory, has a Ph.D in neuroscience from UCLA, which makes her the only cast member to fully understand her character's Techno Babble.
  • Kim Catrall is actually a pretty big fan of Mystery Science Theater 3000 (having being introduced to the series when one of the films she starred in was featured). She even watches the Turkey Day marathons when they air on YouTube.
  • Rachel Maddow from the Rachel Maddow Show has a Moment of Geek segment on her political show. And yes, she has a Ph.D.
    • She also wrote the opening to the Batwoman: Elegy trade paperback.
  • Stephen Fry. Gadget addict, one of the first Mac owners in the UK (sharing his Apple obsession with his friend Douglas Adams). He also wrote a piece in Doctor Who Magazine claiming that missing the second episode of "An Unearthly Child" was the worst moment of his life and "nothing that has happened since has ever, or could ever, make up for it". He's also shown to be a fan of Harry Potter, to the point of voicing the audiobooks from Philosopher's Stone to Deathly Hallows.
    • He is also purportedly the last surviving person to know the answer to Why 42?
    • Don't forget going out of his way to do a 25-th birthday tribute to the GNU project, suggesting that he may be an avid Linux user as much as he is an Apple fan.
    • He's been known to quote The Princess Bride on Twitter, and is a big fan of Ian Fleming's James Bond novels. One of his many Twitter avatars (which is, at the time of writing, his current one) is also a drawing from one of the animators on The Simpsons, which he very much appreciates.
    • Fry also was commissioned to write an episode of Doctor Who for the 2007 or 2008 season, but it fell through because he didn't have time to rewrite the episode for a new companion after Billie Piper left. He did make a guest appearance in "Spyfall".
  • British comedian Russell Howard is a massive Harry Potter fan who stood in line for the midnight release of Deathly Hallows.
  • Radio and TV presenter Terry Wogan is a huge fan of the books of P. G. Wodehouse.
  • British comedian and TV presenter Phill Jupitus enjoyed Dad's Army ever since his youth.
  • British TV presenter Jools Holland is a huge fan of The Prisoner. He owns costumes and props from the series and occasionally appears wearing the trademark brown-with-white-pipe blazer featured in it. In 1987, Holland demonstrated his love of the series and starred in a spoof documentary, "The Laughing Prisoner", with Stephen Fry, Terence Alexander and Hugh Laurie.
  • Bill Cosby: After Sammy Davis Jr. passed away Cosby wore a pin, "SDjr" as a tribute in The Cosby Show.
  • Al Roker, the weatherman for Today since 1996, is a fan of Ghostbusters, which explains why he was chosen to make a cameo in the 2016 reboot.
  • All three presenters of Top Gear/The Grand Tour have mentioned their favorite geeky bits. Jeremy Clarkson kept making references to Charles Dance being "the Hand of the King" when Dance went around their track, and had to keep reminding himself not to "think of Khaleesi" while racing his car through a Game of Thrones set in Morocco. Richard Hammond has also mentioned his fondness for Downton Abbey and James May has worn a Dad's Army t-shirt several times on the show.
    • And Clarkson takes the candle here, being a huge AV geek (he recalls building his own sound systems in the late 1970s), 70s rock fan (his columns often feature quotes from rock songs of that period), Monty Python's Flying Circus fan and knowing much more about mid-1960s cars than could be expected.
  • Jimmy Fallon is an avid gamer. He has an annual Video Game Week on his show, has gaming videos on YouTube, and once defeated Pierce Brosnan in single combat in GoldenEye (1997).
  • There's a reason why besides the occasional celebrity, actor and director, Seth Meyers brings in comic book writers and artists as guests on his show.
  • Rosie O'Donnell is a huge fan of The Muppets and Sesame Street, to the point where Elmo was a recurring guest on her '90s talk show. She helped promote the Tickle Me Elmo doll right before the craze began. In addition to her appearances on Sesame Street, she taped a special episode of her show on the Sesame Street set to commemorate its 30th season.
  • Journalist and TV presenter Abby Martin is a huge fan of Mega Man, and even had a special pixel painting made for her that hangs in her home.
  • Wheel of Fortune host Pat Sajak mentioned sharing a like of Korean dramas with one of the contestants in a March 2024 episode of the show.

    Western Animation: Creators & Actors 

    Puppeteers 
  • Jim Henson was heavily influenced by comedians like Milton Berle, Sid Caesar and Ernie Kovacs. He based the early Muppet designs on the comic strip Pogo. Obviously, he was also greatly influenced by Walt Disney and ventriloquist Edgar Bergen.
  • Frank Oz admires Touch of Evil: "I think it opened up my view of film-that there's so much more that could be done. Actually, by breaking so many rules, he allowed other people to say, "Hey, I can maybe think of some stuff, too!" He just opened up the possibilities more for me. That's what he did."

    Eastern European Animation directors 
  • Dzhangir Suleymanov, a Russian director who works on the children's series KikoRiki, is enough of a fan of Indian culture and cinema that one of the episodes, "Indian Tea", was made to please him - the episode is a parody of Bollywood cinema and has the show's cast dancing to Filmi Music. An earlier episode, "The Disco Dancer", takes its title from an Indian movie of the same name.

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