Larry Wilmore mocks Starbucks 'cuprage' sparked by 'douche-y vertical video' by 'angry guy in a parking lot'

Larry Wilmore mocked the controversy over Starbucks' insufficiently celebratory holiday cups.

Starbucks is going with a minimalist design for its holiday cups -- and some evangelical Christians are pretty upset that they won't see seasonal symbols such as snowflakes and snowmen.

"No snowmen? How am I going to celebrate the birth of Jesus?" Wilmore said.

The controversy started, as so many do in the social media age, with a video rant by "an angry guy in a parking lot" -- a self-described "evangelist" who complained that Starbucks employees were forbidden from wishing customers a "merry Christmas."

"First of all, Christ and Christmas were never even on the cups," Wilmore said. "Also, they're cups. But it only takes one spark from a douche-y vertical video to set off a firestorm of 'cuprage.'"

Various media outlets, most of them owned by Rupert Murdoch's Fox News empire, reported the controversy framed within a "war on Christmas" narrative -- which Wilmore dismissed as ridiculous.

"Only in America can people be outraged over cups," Wilmore said. "We polled a boatload of Syrian refugees on whether the new Starbucks cup was controversial, and their answers were pretty surprising. Zero percent cared about the cups, whereas 43 percent said, 'We can't find my father,' and the remaining 57 percent said, 'My grandmother needs her medicine.'"

The most American part of the "fight before Christmas" was that Starbucks' competitors saw the controversy as an opportunity to steal customers from the coffeehouse chain with holiday kitsch.

"All of this is so silly," Wilmore said. "That's why I get all of my coffee at Bethlehem Brew."

The "Nightly Show" host reached underneath his desk and pulled out an iced coffee strapped to a figurine of Baby Jesus lying in a manger, with a small Nativity scene on top and the North Star attached to the straw.

Watch the entire segment posted online by Comedy Central: