Stephen Colbert

I had mixed feelings when I heard the news that Stephen Colbert would be taking over the Late Show when David Letterman retired.  The only way I knew how to express my mixed feelings was to write a lame Facebook status/tweet and hope that it would go viral.  Out of that social media failure rose this article like the phoenix rising from the ashes or the urge get some page views on the old blog.

As I pronounced earlier, I had mixed feelings about the late night shake up news.  The Colbert Report has been my favorite show on television and I have devoted much of my time to being a faithful member of the Colbert Nation.  Where else on television could you see anything like the stunts Colbert gleefully pulled?  There was the Colbert SuperPac, him running for President of South Carolina, his quests to rename everything after himself (bridges, NASA treadmills, hockey mascots), and his Better Know a District series.  The show was one of the few programs that had scientists, authors, politicians, and musicians as regular guests.   Watching them deal with the Colbert character and seeing Colbert improvise and sometimes best his guests were moments of great hilarity.  Despite the limitations of playing a right wing blowhard, Colbert was able to grow and advance his character (slightly).  The Colbert Character is as much a conservative as he is an egotistical blowhard and a delight to watch on a daily basis.  So, on the selfish reason of losing my favorite show at the end of the year, I was sad upon hearing the news.

Stephen Colbert the person is greatly deserving of Letterman’s chair.  Like Letterman before him, Stephen Colbert put out a show that was greatly different than the late night shows before him and has become one of the most respected people in the comedy world.  In the interviews I’ve seen, Stephen Colbert the person is a widely funny, endlessly kind, and all in all, a very smart man.  There is no doubt that he won’t own the Late Show seat like Letterman before him.  Colbert is a born improviser and it would be unfair to ask him to play the same narrow, but hilarious, character for life.  A Mad Magazine summary of the Colbert Report claimed that the reward for Colbert’s great improvising skills is that he gets to play the same character day in and day out.  With that note, let’s allow the real Colbert free and let him soar like majestic bald eagle he is.  I hope that CBS will let Stephen Colbert do what he wants with his new show and they don’t force him to put on a garden variety talk show with a decent monologue, a decent desk bit, and an interview with 2 actors and a musician.  We have enough of those shows.  Let Colbert shake up the Late Show and do as he pleases.

The last eight months of the Colbert Report will have the air of a Viking funeral.  With every laugh at the antics of “Stephen Colbert” there will be that annoying voice in the back of my head reiterating that my favorite show is coming to an end.  Last night on the Report, Colbert mentioned Letterman’s retirement but then never said he was the successor.  He simply said that person will have big shoes to fill and then bam, it was straight on to Cheating Death with Dr. Stephen T. Colbert, DFA.  The show proceeded with its freight train speed and laser sharp satirical focus as if an announcement had never been made.  It quenched my fears to see that the Colbert Report will be going strong till the very end and I’m a little ashamed at myself for thinking otherwise.  The Colbert Report will go out in a blaze of glory and I can’t wait to follow the show and cry at Colbert’s last closing good night speech (I will cry and I will be damn proud of my tears).  

Hopefully the last show will feature him engaging a bear in an epic clash reminiscent of when Gandalf fought the Balrog.  At the end of the battle, Stephen Colbert will awake and realize his job is not done and that he needs to reenter the realm of the late night talk show.  But like Gandalf the Grey, “Stephen Colbert” will be dead.  Instead, he will rise up, walk to the Late Show, take the name Stephen Colbert, and begin his new journey as network late night host.  Now that would be a finale for one of the best shows of this century (it’s fun to use that phrase).  Congratulations Stephen Colbert, we all wish you well and hope that the next show is at least half as amazing as the Report!