Stephen Colbert

About

Stephen Colbert is an American writer, actor and television host best known for his portrayal of a conservative political pundit on his Comedy Central program The Colbert Report. In April 2014, Colbert was named as David Letterman's successor to the CBS late-night talk show Late Show.

Acting Career

Colbert began his acting career on the sketch comedy show Exit 57, which ran from 1995-1996.^[1] He went on to appear on many TV shows throughout the late '90s before becoming a series regular on Comedy Central's Stranger's With Candy which ran from 1999 to 2000. After working as a writer and corespondent for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart for eight years Colbert got his own Comedy Central mock news show The Colbert Report in 2005.

Online History

ColbertNation.com^[4] was registered on August 19, 2005. The site, which acts as the official web presence for The Colbert Report, features video clips from the show's previously aired episodes, parody polls, and extended interviews with previous guests.

Social Media Presence

Colbert's official Facebook page^[2] was launched on October 17, 2005, and as of March 2014, has over 3.3 million likes. His Twitter account^[3] has over 6 million followers.

White House Correspondents' Dinner

On April 29th, 2006, Colbert spoke at the annual White House Correspondents' dinner held in Washington D.C. His remarks were uploaded in three parts by YouTuber petec587^[14] on April 26th, 2007, with the first section gaining over 3 million views in seven years.

His remarks were seen as somewhat controversial as they were very critical of the then president George W. Bush, and another controversy grew around his appearance when a writer on The Huffington Post claimed his performance wasn't being covered by most media outlets because they didn't want to embarrass the president.^[15]

Whose Line Is It Anyway

On May 17, 2007, YouTuber Samvith V Rao^[8] uploaded a clip from an episode of the improv comedy show Whose Line Is It Anyway which aired on February 24th, 1999, which features Colbert performing a rap with the cast (shown below, left). As of March 2014, the video has over 3 million views. On November 28, 2007, YouTuber DAPvideos^[9] uploaded a clip from the same episode which features Colbert acting out a scene using a fake German-like language (right). As of March 2014, the video has over 810,000 views.

Daft Punk Dance Party

On an episode of The Colbert Report which aired on August 6th, 2013, Colbert hosted a "Daft Punk Dance Party" after the "Get Lucky" singers failed to perform on his show due to a scheduling conflict. While "Get Lucky" played Colbert danced with actors Hugh Laurie, Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon and Bryan Cranston as well as fellow late night hosts Jimmy Fallon and Jon Stewart and the Rockettes. The performance was covered the next day by many major entertainment sites such as Entertainment Weekly^[5] and The Huffington Post.^[6]

Mother's Tribute

On an episode of The Colbert Report which aired on June 19th, 2013, Colbert had a tribute for his late mother, who died on June 12, 2013.^[9] The tribute was covered by major news and culture sites such as Slate^[11], The Huffington Post^[12], and Time.^[13] As of March 2014, the video has over 530,000 views.

CBS Late Show Host

On April 10th, 2014, CBS announced^[16] Colbert would be taking over as host of the Late Show for current host David Letterman after his retirement in 2015. Letterman had announced his retirement^[17] a week prior on April 3rd. Colbert expressed excitement with the move, saying,^[19]

"Simply being a guest on David Letterman’s show has been a highlight of my career. I never dreamed that I would follow in his footsteps, though everyone in late night follows Dave’s lead. I’m thrilled and grateful that CBS chose me. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go grind a gap in my front teeth."

He further clarified that he would not be hosting the show as the conservative character that hosts The Colbert Report. Many others had positive comments about Colbert's move, with fellow comedy central comedian Jon Stewart commenting^[20],

"He’s wonderful in Colbert Report, but he’s got gears he hasn’t even shown people yet. He would be remarkable.”

Comedy Central^[21] tweeted their support for Colbert the same day,

Radio host Rush Limbaugh was critical of CBS's decision to hire Colbert, saying that day on his show The Rush Limbaugh Show^[18],

"CBS has just declared war on the heartland of America. No longer is comedy going to be a covert assault on traditional American values, conservatives––now it’s just going to be wide out in the open. What this hire means is a redefinition of what is funny and a redefinition of what is comedy.”

Controversies

#CancelColbert

#CancelColbert is a Twitter hashtag campaign launched to rally up support for the cancellation of Comedy Central’s satirical news show The Colbert Report in March 2014 after the show host Stephen Colbert tweeted a joke that was perceived as racially insensitive towards Asian Americans on Twitter.

#FireColbert

On May 1st, 2017, Colbert performed an opening monologue on The Late Show, in which he criticized President Donald Trump for his treatment of fellow CBS colleague John Dickerson and proceeded to joke that Trump had a sexual relationship with Vladimir Putin (shown below). The following day, the monologue was uploaded to YouTube, where it gathered upwards of 2.7 million views and 9,500 comments within 24 hours.

"Sir, you attract more skinheads than free Rogaine. You have more people marching against you than cancer. You talk like a sign language gorilla that got hit in the head. In fact, the only thing your mouth is good for is being Vladimir Putin’s cock holster."

That day, Vox^[21] published an article accusing Colbert of making a "homophobic comment" during the monologue. Meanwhile, several threads calling for viewers to contact CBS sponsors and urge them to fire Colbert reached the front page of /r/The_Donald.^[24][25][26] On May 3rd, the hashtag #FireColbert^[23] began trending on Twitter (shown below).

On May 3rd, Redditor honest-human submitted a Daily Struggle comic with buttons labeled "Political correctness is cancer" and "Fire Colbert because of a joke we found offensive" (shown below). Within seven hours, the post gained over 16,800 points (76% upvoted) and 2,700 comments on /r/PoliticalHumor.^[22]

Colbert Responds to #FireColbert

During his May 3rd show, Colbert addressed criticisms of homophobia that resulted in the #FireColbert backlash in his opening monologue (shown below). He said:

"Welcome to The Late Show. I'm your host, Stephen Colbert. Still? I am still the host? I'm still the host! Now, if you saw my monologue Monday, you know that I was a little upset at Donald Trump for insulting a friend of mine. So at the end of that monologue I had a few choice insults for the president in return. I don't regret that. He, I believe, can take care of himself. I have jokes; he has the launch codes. So, it's a fair fight.

I'm not going to repeat the phrase, but I just want to say for the record, life is short, and anyone who expresses their love for another person, in their own way, is to me, an American hero. I think we can all agree on that. I hope even the president and I can agree on that. Nothing else. But, that. While I would do it again, I would change a few words that were cruder than they needed to be,” he said. “I’m not going to repeat the phrase. But I just want to say, for the record, life is short, and anyone who expresses their love in their own way, is to me an American hero. I think we can all agree on that.

I hope even the president and I can agree on that. Nothing else. But, that."

Online, people seemed mostly pleased with Colbert's statement, though response was still mixed.^[27][28] Twitter published a Moment that archived the response on the website to Colbert's monologue.^[29]

Related Memes

The Green Screen Challenge

During a "Better Know a District" segment on an episode of The Colbert Report which aired on August 10th, 2006, Colbert was shown in front of a green screen holding a lightsaber parodying the Star Wars Kid video. The video was uploaded to Youtube and subsequently edited. On an episode of The Colbert Report which aired on August 21st, 2006, Colbert showed some of these edited clips and announced the "Green Screen Challenge" which called upon fans to create videos based on the original. The two finalists, Bonnie R. and George Lucas (the creator of Star Wars) were announced on an episode which aired on October 11th, 2006, when they were introduced and each of their entries was aired. As of March 2014, the finalist video has over 48,000 views. In the same episode Colbert named Bonnie R. the winner.

Not Intended to Be a Factual Statement

On April 8th, 2011, Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl put forth a false statistics that Planned Parenthood, a non-profit maternal and child health service organization, spent 90% of its budget towards abortion-related activities.

In response to media inquiries, Senator Kyl's office then released an ethically questionable statement saying that his remark was "not intended to be a factual statement."

On April 11th, Colbert slammed on the Arizona senator's gaffe, poking fun at the careless response that his argument wasn't intended to be a factual statement, but only to be taken as true. That same night, Colbert began tweeting a series of baseless rumors about Kyl with the hashtag #NotIntendedToBeAFactualStatement.

On the following night of April 12th, Stephen Colbert announced that he would be tweeting various "non-facts" about Senator Kyl and encouraged his audience and Twitter followers to participate using the designated hashtag.

Personal Life

Stephen Colbert was born on May 13, 1964 in Charleston, South Carolina. He attended Northwestern University, graduating in 1986. He's married to Evelyn McGee-Colbert and they have three children.

Search Interest

External References