It was his last show and it was the only episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert I’ve ever watched. Yes, I’d seen clips, but I had honestly never watched a full episode ever. I never actually watched an episode of The Colbert Report either, or The Daily Show for that matter. Watching liberals pretend to be honest brokers on the news of the day never appealed to me. But Colbert’s last show did, mostly because I wanted to see one fresh before it was too late and I figured he and his ample staff would bring their A-game. Boy, was I wrong.
More than a decade ago (closer, probably, to 15 years) I twice turned down “being on” The Daily Show. I wasn’t asked to be the in-studio guest either time, I was asked to be interviewed as part of a package, or whatever they were called when one of their “correspondents” did a “report” on something. I think one topic about Net Neutrality and I can’t remember the other beyond it was about a column I’d written.
Both times they seemed genuinely surprised that I had no interest in being on their show, but I had no interest in being “famous.” I’d known and heard about enough people who’d been in those types of segments where a half hour interview was boiled down to about 45 seconds, out of context, and cut to make the subject look like a moron. You didn’t have to watch their crap to know the toilet needed to be flushed and I didn’t have any desire to be a part of it.
Still, a lot of people did and got skewered by Colbert as, what I’m told was a “character” he played that was supposed to be conservative, or something. All I could mostly figure out he was doing from the clips I’d seen was being an arrogant douchebag. Once he took over The Late Show, he struck me as the same person, so I never understood the “character” he was playing.
The 2016 election broke him even more than he’d been by whatever happened in his childhood and with his parents. He was never all that funny, but after Trump he was just bitter. The clips I saw of his monologues didn’t involve a set-up and a punchline, but a complaint and an applause line. His studio audience didn’t laugh, they agreed and cheered that agreement. There was no challenge of their ideals or assumptions, only pandering to them.
The whole genre followed suit. Jimmy Kimmel used to be funny, or at least was able to be a part of something Adam Carolla made funny without ruining it. Then Trump happened and broke him too. Whining and crying replaced jokes; hate became currency for the low-rated Kimmel. Jimmy Fallon followed suit seemingly to avoid being attacked for not being obedient. And Seth Meyers is just the asshat he comes off as, only worse when the cameras are off, I’ve heard. Never having been really funny likely wears on him.
But Colbert was the trend-setter, and he sucked. The hype around him was endless and he never lived up to it. Who the hell wants to see Elizabeth Warren a half dozen times on a “comedy” show? He had politicians unpopular outside the left-wing bubble and cable “news” personalities no one wanted to watch on their own shows. He lost more money than Bernie Madoff. The only scandal in his career is how he worked for so long.
White liberals whined like he was owed a TV show when all he had to do was not suck all the time. Stephen Colbert couldn’t, or at least wouldn’t.
His last show was bad. There weren’t any jokes a paint-huffer couldn’t have written. He absolutely wasted having Paul McCartney on, asking stupid questions and not listening and responding to the answers. The monologue was bad and the “bit” about the timeline and wormhole was forced and unfunny (though the only bit I did laugh at was the crack about Jimmy Fallon being better looking than Kimmel and Fallon celebrating it).
Hundreds of people lost their jobs because Stephen Colbert wouldn’t do his – to be funny about everyone and entertain as many people as possible. He’d rather have ranted about whatever his chorus wanted to be outraged over than make people’s days end on a lighter note as the slipped off to sleep, so the audience at home slipped off to other shows.
Stephen Colbert’s show lost CBS millions and it ultimately lost everyone who worked on it their income. While it’s sad, it’s hard to care. At any point over the last 10 years all he had to do was grow up and do his job. He wouldn’t.
He’ll be fine, he was paid a fortune to lose tens of millions, but the men and women who worked for him are screwed. Though many of them can now breathe a sigh of relief no longer having to live in fear of being discovered that they are not purist liberals who support open borders and child genital mutilation – while not firing offences from the show, impure thoughts were frowned upon, to say the least. It’s just too bad they can’t pay their bills anymore.
But Colbert can. He will be missed…by someone…probably. Jackass.
Derek Hunter is the host of the Derek Hunter Show on WMAL in Washington, DC, and has a free daily podcast (subscribe!) and author of the book, Outrage, INC., which exposes how liberals use fear and hatred to manipulate the masses, and host of the weekly “Week in F*cking Review” podcast where the news is spoken about the way it deserves to be. Follow him on Twitter at @DerekAHunter.