Mandy Patinkin

Mandy Patinkin has to be one of the coolest people of all time. He is an outrageously talented singer, he played Inigo Montoya, he is well spoken enough to make Stephen Colbert speechless AND he can grow a mean beard.

We’re talking an awesomely mean beard.

He originated the role of George in Sunday in the Park with George, a production which I’ve been listening to a lot lately for a university assignment, and his voice and interpretation is just beautiful. He has so much controlled passion when he sings and gives everything his all – if you want proof of that, check out his version of ‘God-Why-Don’t-You-Love-Me Blues’ from Follies; it’s outrageously high energy.

Yesterday I bought an album of his, Mandy Patinkin Sings Sondheim, which had me sold on the name alone. Today, I’ve listened to about half of it, but my god, is it glorious. I could listen to him sing Sondheim for weeks. He flits from one song to the next, weaving in and out of melodies seamlessly. It’s brilliant.

If I were to nominate someone for ‘World’s Most Awesome Guy’, it’d probably be him.

Or Mel Brooks.

Always nominate Mel Brooks.

Jon Stewart

I love finding new shows to obsess over, and right now I’m desperate to get my hands on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. He’s a comedic figure, along with Stephen Colbert, who I haven’t seen too much of, but respect so much – they are both incredibly funny, incredibly intelligent men.

On YouTube, I’ve been scouring the videos for clips of Jon Stewart going on other people’s shows and absolutely sipping into them and revealing to everyone every flaw that the show in question, or the hosts of said show, is trying desperately to hide.

His ‘debates’ with Bill O’Reilly are quite awesome (although O’Reilly is shaping up to be a figure that I dislike quite violently) but my favourite so far is when he appeared on CNN show Crossfire and told them to their faces that they are harming America. They didn’t handle it quite well, trying to attack Stewart for not being funny, but Stewart kept his cool, continued to make his points and – eventually – watched as the show got taken off the air.

Even from the very, very small amount of clips that I’ve seen of his show, Stewart and The Daily Show team, deserve all the Emmy’s that they’ve been awarded.

Even if it is a really easy category to predict.