Jon Stewart came back from a two-week vacation last night and was in excellent form: There was a great recap on Mitt Romney’s Bain problem, a very funny interview with Louis C.K., and a scathing bit where he decried the stupidity of Viacom’s decision to pull its programming — including his show — off the Web.

Except, here it is. You can see the entirety of last night’s episode on the official “The Daily Show” site, and the same goes for Stephen Colbert’s show.

Viacom and DirecTV are still fighting over subscription fees, so it’s unclear what prompted Viacom to change its mind about the Web ban it instituted last week, or whether it will apply to other Viacom shows as well. I took a brief tour of other Viacom sites this morning, and found that I could see old “Jersey Shore” episodes, but was out of luck with “Teen Mom.”

But most of Viacom’s shows are in reruns right now, and Colbert and Stewart are two of its most important online properties. So if it has called off the ban for those guys, it’s kind of the same as calling off the ban.

Then again, the ban for Stewart and Colbert was never going to be particularly effective, since it wasn’t a Webwide ban, anyway: The shows were always going to be available on Hulu.

Or maybe, per Stewart’s suggestion, the Viacom brass was worried that in the absence of “Daily Show” episodes on the Web, its customers might find other distractions, like masturbation. Or books.

Update: Here’s Viacom spokesman Carl Folta with a sort-of answer:

You will remember that we never said we were taking all our full length episodes down, just slimming down our offerings. The Daily Show and The Colbert Report were on hiatus, so no recent programs were available. We know their fans have missed them — and sadly subscribers of DirecTV who have not yet switched distributors are still forced to be without all the Viacom networks they love — so we wanted to get them back on our sites as soon as we could.

James Duncan Davidson

Turkle is a professor of the social studies of science and technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and she has done her own research on these topics and published a book about them last year called “Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other” (here she is talking about the book with Stephen Colbert). Her talk clearly resonated at TED, where attendees in the main auditorium aren’t allowed to use their phones or computers, a rare occasion for the many technologists here.

But I don’t think there’s any doubt that after their enthusiastic standing ovation, those twitchy techies were back on their smartphones as soon as the session ended.

What’s so bad about the “I share, therefore I am” mentality, where people live their lives thinking of the pictures they will take and the status messages they will post?

It’s that we’re hiding from each other and real relationships, Turkle said. “We get to edit, and that means we get to delete, and that means we get to retouch. Human relationships are rich and they’re messy and demanding. And we clean them up with technology.”

All this time spent communicating digitally gives us “the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship,” Turkle said. “If we’re not able to be alone, we’re going to be more lonely.”

Turkle asked people to create spaces in their offices and homes that are designated for conversation. She told them to work on solitude and to listen to each other.

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Still, Stewart did spend eight minutes on the story last night. Here he is on Rupert Murdoch’s visit to Parliament. And, of course, Wendi Deng’s pie-deflection.

Which segued to this bit on some News Corp. properties’ … restraint in covering the story.

And for good measure, here’s Colbert’s contribution from last night — a chat with the New York Times’s David Carr, who does most of the heavy lifting.

(Hat tip to All Facebook.)

One new twist to the proceedings: The White House, which normally plays along with the event even though the chief occupant gets ribbed, has gone all in. Immediately after showing this video–a parody trailer based on the “The King’s Speech”–at the event, they released it on YouTube (via Twitter, of course).

The bit isn’t LOL-worthy, IMHO. But it does contain jokes, and I think it’s noteworthy that they’re putting this out there for public consumption, at a time when much of the electorate seems particularly… susceptible to jokes. Even more so if they’re easily accessible via Google.

Also, as The Atlantic.com’s Gabe Snyder points out, the clip contains a Wu Tang Clan sample. Which is sure to upset someone (and please lots of us, too).

(Correction: The song — “Shimmy Shimmy Ya“–is actually from (now-deceased) Wu Tang Clan member Ol’ Dirty Bastard, notes MediaMemo reader “quietstorms“. Even better/worse!)

Meanwhile, you can see all 17 minutes of Obama’s presentation here (much sharper, I think–good Fox News dig), via the Washington Post:

And here’s a TV network taking them up on the offer: Viacom’s Comedy Central, which is counting on Twitter to promote its “Comedy Awards” show tonight.

The network has linked up with the service before. Last month, for instance, it devoted on-screen real estate throughout its Donald Trump roast to hashtag terms it wanted viewers to use as they talked up the show on Twitter. Users who obliged ended up creating free, real-time advertising for the program.

Comedy Central plans to do the same thing with tonight’s show. But it’s taking the integration deeper by buying a “promoted trend” in advance of the broadcast.

Click through and you’ll end up at a page promoting the show, the network’s attempt to create an annual Oscars-style event (which was taped two weeks ago, a fact the network isn’t trying to hide: you can see the winners here). And if you end up on the site while the show is airing tonight, you’ll see a livestream of the telecast, along with a dedicated Twitter widget.

The network is hoping it will be able to get other related terms to trend–for free–as the day goes on; it has recruited about a dozen of the comedians that will appear on the show to actively Twitter about it in advance.

Twitter and Comedy Central were hoping to push the partnership even further by embedding a livestream of tonight’s broadcast on Twitter.com itself, alongside the “#comedyawards” page. But technical issues forced them to scrap the plan Friday morning.

Comedy Central isn’t relying solely on Twitter to push tonight’s show. It will simulcast the show on five other Viacom-owned channels, including Spike and VH1. And for good measure, it will stream the show to Apple’s iPad and iPhone, and handsets running Google’s Android.

But it’s most excited about Twitter, in large part because comedians themselves have flocked to the service in the last couple years. “It just seems like a natural fit”, says Steve Grimes, who oversees digital for the network.

Twitter is quietly excited, too. Even without the embeded video feature, tonight’s show gives it a chance to promote a cycle that would be particularly virtuous for Twitter: TV networks advertise on the service, get higher ratings, and can charge more for their own advertising. Repeat.

Here’s Colbert’s second night of jabs at the Huffington Post and its response to his first night of jabs. Things are now getting so self-referential and Escheresque that it threatens to “”rip a hole in the blog-time continuum, and we can all get sucked into some kind of bizarro parallel huffingverse, where bloggers are paid for their work.”

And, of course, the Huffington Post has responded. Twice!

There’s the obligatory repost of Colbert’s post talking about Huffpo’s first repost of…hoo, boy. You get it.

And, now, in response to “The Colbuffington Re-Post,” which is exactly what it sounds like, there’s “Huffbert Nation.” Which is exactly what it sounds like.

But seriously. We’re done with this. Right? At least until Monday night…

Colbert started out with an entire segment on the Daily, Rupert Murdoch’s new iPad newspaper. (Note that this Web site, like the Daily, is owned by News Corp. Though apparently, based on Colbert’s montage, we did not cover the Daily’s launch as enthusiastically as some of our corporate siblings.)

But that was just a warm-up! Colbert really got going when he got around to the AOL-Huffington Post deal, with a drop-dead Arianna impersonation.

Even more accurate: “The Colbuffington Re-Post,” which is exactly what it sounds like.

What’s that? You want more meta? Okay. Here’s HuffPo’s repost of Colbert’s post. And now I’m a little dizzy and will have to sit down for a bit.

That’s according to people familiar with the new deal, announced last night, between the video site and cable giant Viacom. They tell me Hulu has agreed to a guaranteed payment in the $40 million to $50 million range for Viacom’s programming. The total payout could increase depending on the shows’ performance.

That money covers the new deal’s entire length, which hasn’t been disclosed–Viacom will only allow that the deal goes “into” 2012. But it’s reasonable to assume it’s a two-year pact, just like Hulu’s programming deals with its parents/content owners–News Corp.’s Fox, Disney’s ABC and Comcast’s NBCU. (News Corp. also owns this Web site.)

Stewart’s and Colbert’s shows will be available for free, the day after they air, on Hulu.com– just as they used to be. In addition, Viacom will also provide shows like “Tosh.0″ and “Jersey Shore,” on a 21-day delay, on Hulu’s paid Hulu Plus service.

The deal is a coup for Hulu, but it’s unclear how many more of them CEO Jason Kilar can pull off without getting more financing. And for that he’ll need the full support of his partners, which makes the blog post he put up last night in the wake of the announcement that much more puzzling. Or maybe he doesn’t want to run Hulu anymore.

For now, just like old times, here’s a Hulu clip from one of Stewart’s recent episodes, where he takes advantage of the big, fat, hanging curveball that Rep. Michele Bachmann and the Tea Party served up last week.

It’d be cool if Twitter told us how many times that one actually was retweeted. For those of us who like numbers and stuff.

But whatever. Here’s Colbert’s victory celebration, from last night’s show. Biz Stone dropped by to do the honors.

Oh. Also! Want to buy an ad on Twitter? They’ve got a Web site for you.

It’s a smackdown of chit-chatting ladies, as CBS’s “The Talk” debuted this week, in an attempt to grab audience from the powerhouse daytime ABC talk show “The View.”

It’ll be hard, since those are some tough women on “The View,” which recently was in the spotlight after Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar walked off the set in the middle of a segment with Fox News cable pundit Bill O’Reilly, after he impugned Muslims.

Here is a clip from “The View,” in which O’Reilly comic clone Stephen Colbert pretends to walk off the stage.

It’s followed by an opener for “The Talk”–the best part comes at the end, when Julie Chen’s husband, CBS CEO Les Moonves, offers his support in a welcome video, but also threatens to cancel the show if ratings are not good.

Enjoy:

As in Conan O’Brien, the former NBC employee whose brief stint as host of “The Tonight Show” ended badly, and expensively, for the network. It seems to have worked out okay for O’Brien, though–he got a very big severance check, an infusion of online adoration and, eventually, a well-paid gig at Time Warner’s Turner (TWX).

And while it would be a little, um, awkward if O’Brien actually won the Emmy for best “variety, comedy or music series” (he’s up against Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Bill Maher and “Saturday Night Live”), there is some upside for NBC here. The GE (GE) unit is broadcasting the Emmys in late August, and the potential car-crash nature of the award show might bring in some more eyeballs.

Here is where I’d show you a clip of the award-nominated show, but NBC has scrubbed O’Brien off of its site, Hulu and much of Google’s (GOOG) YouTube. So you’ll have to settle for this bit that O’Brien did specifically for YouTube, where he introduces his favorite viral clips.

As in Conan O’Brien, the former NBC employee whose brief stint as host of “The Tonight Show” ended badly, and expensively, for the network. It seems to have worked out okay for O’Brien, though–he got a very big severance check, an infusion of online adoration and, eventually, a well-paid gig at Time Warner’s Turner (TWX).

And while it would be a little, um, awkward if O’Brien actually won the Emmy for best “variety, comedy or music series” (he’s up against Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Bill Maher and “Saturday Night Live”), there is some upside for NBC here. The GE (GE) unit is broadcasting the Emmys in late August, and the potential car-crash nature of the award show might bring in some more eyeballs.

Here is where I’d show you a clip of the award-nominated show, but NBC has scrubbed O’Brien off of its site, Hulu and much of Google’s (GOOG) YouTube. So you’ll have to settle for this bit that O’Brien did specifically for YouTube, where he introduces his favorite viral clips.

Colbert starts out by talking about the New York Times’ (NYT) ban-that-really-isn’t-a-ban on the word “tweet.” Obligatory red-meat line: “Twitter hasn’t banned the word ‘newspaper,’ and those have already faded into oblivion.”

Then there’s some fail whale stuff, too.

Not much. At least not in the first few weeks of their absence, according to Comscore (SCOR).

Check out Comscore’s tally of the top video sites in the U.S. for February:

And now for March:

Stewart and Colbert left Hulu, the joint venture site owned by GE’s NBC (GE), Disney’s ABC (DIS) and News Corp.’s Fox (NWS), on March 10. But note that Hulu actually streamed about 10 percent more videos that month than it did in February.

Meanwhile streams at Viacom (VIA) sites, now the only places that can host clips like Stewart’s Apple (AAPL) smackdown, increased as well. Perhaps some of that is because Hulu has been good about the breakup, and is directing Daily Show and Colbert Report seekers directly to Viacom’s sites. Which they’re not required to do.

But for whatever reason, it looks like Viacom’s decision to yank the clips — or Hulu’s decision not pay more for them, depending on your interpretation — made sense for both sides.

Some of the requisite caveats: This is just the first sample, and it’s not apples to apples, because February is the shortest month, etc. And overall video traffic appears to have increased around the Web month-to-month. Also, Hulu has been hovering around the billion video per month mark for some time now, so perhaps this its natural level.

(A Hulu aside — how are they possibly getting the $200 million-plus run rate they boasted about earlier this year? Last week I sat down and watched an entire episode of “Lost”, which should be their most premium inventory. The show started off promisingly, with a Verizon sponsorship, but by the end of it I was watching ads for 5-Hour Energy and then what appeared to be some non-profit giveaways. That can’t possibly be right, can it?)

And while we’re looking at the numbers: Note that Vevo, the “Hulu for music videos”, is back in the top 10. And, as always, that Google’s YouTube (GOOG) towers above every other site, by a huge margin.