Quoth Steven Colbert of the Daily Show:
It's just like regular background but with no tagbacks, frontsies or backsies, taken to infinity plus one on opposite day, circle circle dot dot now you've got a cootie shot.
It was first pioneered by Edward R. Murrow.
(via Eschaton, thanks Jon). I am too lazy to go look for can't find a video clip of this. Anyone got a url? While we're at it, did anyone else DIE watching last week's seg with porn star Mary "Once I ran for governor but now I'm a farting Republican" Carey?
Update: Boing Boing reader !jonathan says, "CrooksAndLiars has the DSSB vid — Link." And Fleshbot has the Mary Carey clip in this roundup of links (Double Super thanks to Samuel Sugar for hosting the video).