A Look Back at “The Colbert Report’s” great satirical moments reveals how the show will live on in the public consciousness, long after its finale.
Rebellious and somehow still reverent, “The Colbert Report” was an equal-opportunity Truthiness Revealer in its treatment of hot-button sociopolitical issues.
Stephen Colbert is King of the Internet. He has been regularly memed, tumblerized, quoted, cited, blogged about, tweeted about, celebrated and possibly inflated by the media, cruelly deflated by the media, and so on, throughout his long nine-year run hosting The Colbert Report. In whatever light he is cast, Stephen Colbert and his team’s brand of satire on The Colbert Report will continue to ripple out for a long, long time. The invocation of his name on every piece of the internet-o-sphere is no accident, but rather a reflection of his influence and appeal. However, this phenomenon took years to develop, and required that the show adapt and grow. Increasingly, the show ventured off the set and took its improvisational games out into the real world in order to reach its satirical goals. In this post, I will explore some of the pivotal events that resulted. Its malleable nature notwithstanding, the program’s core concept of exposing “truthiness” has remained intact, and has not only become popularized, but immortalized; therefore, its message will linger in public consciousness for years to come.
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When I speak at law schools, I am always asked about the Colbert Super PAC “Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow” and its sibling 501(c)(4), “Colbert Super PAC Shhh.” Almost every time, someone asks, “How did you and Stephen Colbert plan the story line of his coverage of money in politics?”
The assumption at law schools, where law professors create a course by designing a complete blueprint for each subject, is that Stephen’s two years of on-air legal conversations on money and politics issues were planned and scripted in advance. Stephen certainly offered the American public a course in modern campaign finance law, but there never was a master plan for the discovery of the American campaign finance system’s peculiarities. Instead, our serial discussion evolved in wonderful spontaneity, appropriate to Stephen’s belief in the power of improvisation. One conversation simply led logically to another—unless Stephen got that wild look in his eyes and said “What if I did…?” (like “run for President of South Carolina”), and then the dialogue took an unexpected turn.
Full Article: TIME.com
This was my sixth time going to see the show and by far the most emotional and the most eagerly anticipated. I was so anxious about it that I actually have two reporTs to…um…reporT.
My BONUS Special Taping report: December 16, 2014.
When we got to the studio, they announced that they weren’t going to be able to use the studio due to some sort of emergency that they didn’t get into. They bussed us over to another place, a classroom at a college. They had to cancel the musical guest due to the change and they did a round table panel discussion instead and were going to have a bunch of pundit-types for guests. They only let ticket holders in; no guests of ticket holders and no standby.
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And just like that, it’s gone. This truly marks the end of an era.
An audio recording has surfaced of President Barack Obama and Stephen Colbert rehearsing “We’ll Meet Again” backstage at the Lisner Auditorium at George Washington University. According to ThatsAPhotoGuy, the YouTube user who posted the audio, “their mics were still live and transmitted the audio to the media room backstage … While there isn’t video from them actually singing (they were backstage away from the media room), I was able to record it.”
While the video doesn’t make clear why the President was cut from the star-studded sing-along, he can clearly be heard rehearsing the song with Stephen Colbert. President Obama was the featured guest on the December 8th, 2014 episode of ‘The Colbert Report’ titled, “Stephen Colbert Presents: Mr. Colbert Goes to Washington D.C. Ya Later, Legislator: Partisan is Such Sweet Sorrow: A Colbert Victory Lap, ‘014.”
(Thank you to StephenSmile64 and Goob for the Tip!)
The series finale of The Colbert Report was the most-watched episode in its history with 2.5 million viewers. For comparison sake: Earlier this month, when Colbert rushed in where Democrats feared to tread — hosting President Obama not long after the midterm elections — he’d been rewarded with what was then considered a really big turnout, audience-wise. With POTUS as his guest (and The WORD anchor), Colbert’s show jumped nearly 50 percent compared to its season average. An average of 1.732 million people watched that Monday telecast, in which Colbert was telecast from George Washington University in Washington, D.C.
Colbert’s most recent original episode before Obama’s visit, the previous Thursday, had averaged 1.092 million viewers. The episode in which Obama took over The WORD segment to talk about Obamacare, clocked 520,000 18-34 year olds, compared to previous Thursday’s 278,000; calendar year to date, the show was averaging 364,000 viewers in that demo. More than half Obama’s audience — 953,000 viewers — was aged 18-49, compared to calendar year’s 628,000 viewers in the bracket.
Source: Deadline.com
During this last week of The Colbert Report many wonderful articles were written about the impact of the show, praise for Stephen’s character and questions on how it would all end. I have compiled a few of these articles. Please enjoy reading them and give us your thoughts about them in the comment section.
Read more
© Frank Micelotta | Getty Images
Vulture recently enlisted a variety of celebrities, musicians, filmmakers, authors and media personalities who have been guests on or are fans of ‘The Colbert Report’ to recount their memories of and experiences with one of the greatest television characters of all time.
Read more
The Colbert Report – Part 2
A Look Back at “The Colbert Report’s” great satirical moments reveals how the show will live on in the public consciousness, long after its finale.
Rebellious and somehow still reverent, “The Colbert Report” was an equal-opportunity Truthiness Revealer in its treatment of hot-button sociopolitical issues.
Stephen Colbert is King of the Internet. He has been regularly memed, tumblerized, quoted, cited, blogged about, tweeted about, celebrated and possibly inflated by the media, cruelly deflated by the media, and so on, throughout his long nine-year run hosting The Colbert Report. In whatever light he is cast, Stephen Colbert and his team’s brand of satire on The Colbert Report will continue to ripple out for a long, long time. The invocation of his name on every piece of the internet-o-sphere is no accident, but rather a reflection of his influence and appeal. However, this phenomenon took years to develop, and required that the show adapt and grow. Increasingly, the show ventured off the set and took its improvisational games out into the real world in order to reach its satirical goals. In this post, I will explore some of the pivotal events that resulted. Its malleable nature notwithstanding, the program’s core concept of exposing “truthiness” has remained intact, and has not only become popularized, but immortalized; therefore, its message will linger in public consciousness for years to come.
Read more
This was my sixth time going to see the show and by far the most emotional and the most eagerly anticipated. I was so anxious about it that I actually have two reporTs to…um…reporT.
My BONUS Special Taping report: December 16, 2014.
When we got to the studio, they announced that they weren’t going to be able to use the studio due to some sort of emergency that they didn’t get into. They bussed us over to another place, a classroom at a college. They had to cancel the musical guest due to the change and they did a round table panel discussion instead and were going to have a bunch of pundit-types for guests. They only let ticket holders in; no guests of ticket holders and no standby.
Read more
And just like that, it’s gone. This truly marks the end of an era.
An audio recording has surfaced of President Barack Obama and Stephen Colbert rehearsing “We’ll Meet Again” backstage at the Lisner Auditorium at George Washington University. According to ThatsAPhotoGuy, the YouTube user who posted the audio, “their mics were still live and transmitted the audio to the media room backstage … While there isn’t video from them actually singing (they were backstage away from the media room), I was able to record it.”
While the video doesn’t make clear why the President was cut from the star-studded sing-along, he can clearly be heard rehearsing the song with Stephen Colbert. President Obama was the featured guest on the December 8th, 2014 episode of ‘The Colbert Report’ titled, “Stephen Colbert Presents: Mr. Colbert Goes to Washington D.C. Ya Later, Legislator: Partisan is Such Sweet Sorrow: A Colbert Victory Lap, ‘014.”
(Thank you to StephenSmile64 and Goob for the Tip!)
During this last week of The Colbert Report many wonderful articles were written about the impact of the show, praise for Stephen’s character and questions on how it would all end. I have compiled a few of these articles. Please enjoy reading them and give us your thoughts about them in the comment section.
Read more
© Frank Micelotta | Getty Images
Vulture recently enlisted a variety of celebrities, musicians, filmmakers, authors and media personalities who have been guests on or are fans of ‘The Colbert Report’ to recount their memories of and experiences with one of the greatest television characters of all time.
Read more