LeBron James wows 'Daily Show' in Ohio

The Associated Press

October 31, 2006 - 10:30AM

$In this photo provided by Comedy Central, Jon Stewart, right, greets Cleveland Cavaliers\' LeBron James during the taping of Comedy Central\'s \"The Daily Show With Jon Stewart,\" Monday.$

In this photo provided by Comedy Central, Jon Stewart, right, greets Cleveland Cavaliers\' LeBron James during the taping of Comedy Central\'s \"The Daily Show With Jon Stewart,\" Monday.

The Associated Press

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Cleveland Cavaliers star LeBron James wowed the crowd - and Jon Stewart - Monday during a taping of Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" at Ohio State University.

Show host Stewart leaped onto a table to greet James, who still stood nearly as tall as the comedian, and the two shook hands.

Stewart raved about James' unstoppable basketball career, and his superstar status at age 21, asking at one point: "I don't mean to be rude, but are you an alien creature?"

James told Stewart that he was always taller than other kids and, when he was 14 or 15, he realized he could do things better than other basketball players.

Stewart asked James if anything - even kryptonite - could stop him.

"At this point I'm not sure anything can stop me," James said.

Looking for something to beat him at, Stewart challenged James to a game of rock-paper-scissors. James got paper; Stewart got rock.

The taping at the university's Roy Bowen Theatre was the first in the popular news parody's week of broadcasts from Ohio for its "Midwest Midterm Midtacular," the show's fifth outside New York in 10 years.

Taped to air later Monday, the episode poked fun at Ohio's penchant for high school football and high-fat chain restaurant food, with one correspondent noting Ohio is "round on the ends and high-cholesterol in the middle."

Unfazed, the mostly student crowd periodically threw an "O-H" and an "I-O" into the air, even as the show mocked the beloved ritual.

When Stewart asked James where he would have played college basketball if he'd gone to college, he said Ohio State and the crowd roared.

Following the taping, James said he's recently agreed to appear on shows like Stewart's and "The Late Show with David Letterman" for the first time because he's matured and wants to show people another side of himself.

"I just got a little older," he said. "You're 18 and you want to rip and roar."

When he has contact with college life, like at the recent Ohio State-Texas game, he sometimes wishes he had gone to college, where he would have majored in business marketing.

"But at the end of the day I don't regret any of my decisions," he said.

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