Going to miss the Colbert Report! Rohan: Colbert will be true to himself on CBS, but will viewers follow? April 10, 2014, 10:36 PM Last updated: Thursday, April 10, 2014, 10:48 PM BY VIRGINIA ROHAN RECORD COLUMNIST The Record PRNewsFoto/Madame Tussauds Washington D.C. Stephen Colbert, shown with his wax figure at Madame Tussauds in Washington, will replace David Letterman on the “Late Show,” but not as his over-the-top pundit character. What kind of talk-show host will the real Stephen Colbert make? A terrific one, I’d say. But how will the rest of America vote? That’s the question now that CBS has announced that the host of his Comedy Central satirical news show “The Colbert Report” — a man best known for playing a hilariously egotistical, overly patriotic version of himself — will replace David Letterman as host of “Late Show” next year. The news — which the network announced Thursday, exactly a week after Letterman divulged his retirement plan — ends speculation that CBS might go in a new and different direction, perhaps choosing a woman (Tina Fey made many wish lists) or someone other than another white man (Arsenio Hall was among those mentioned). Colbert, 49, who’ll be taking over “Late Show” some time in 2015, has been around long enough to have given us a pretty good idea of what his strengths are. And he has lots of them. For starters, Colbert is highly intelligent, laser-sharp and very funny, with a special flair for improvisational humor. He demonstrated that in early 2008, two months into the Writers’ Guild of America strike, when he and Jon Stewart resumed their respective Comedy Central shows — without the help of writing staffs. Colbert proved adept at improvising his monologue and interview questions. He clearly learned a lot during his days performing at Second City in Chicago, something he did after graduating with a theater degree from Northwestern University. Colbert, who lives in Montclair with his wife and three children, has also been immersed in political humor for so long that he’ll likely deliver opening monologues that are more incisive and topical than either of his future Jimmy competitors — Fallon or Kimmel. He could bring to CBS an element of Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart,” the program from which his own spun off. Colbert originally aspired to be a serious actor, and the “Stephen Colbert” we have seen on Comedy Central is a manufactured persona, just like Chuck Noblet, the the closeted gay high school history teacher he played on “Strangers With Candy” (1999 to 2000). Colbert co-created and wrote that cult Comedy Central series, which parodied “after-school special” made-for-TV movies, with “Second City” chums Paul Dinello and Amy Sedaris. During a 1999 set visit this writer made to the temporarily vacant Paramus middle school where part of that show was filmed, Colbert was cordial and funny, just another hardworking actor, just starting to get more notice for his work as a “Daily Show” correspondent. Colbert had been hired by “The Daily Show” on a trial basis in 1997. After Stewart became the show’s host in 1999, and the show took on a more political tone, Colbert’s correspondent character increasingly got more popular. Getting his own spinoff in 2005 was a natural progression. And his mentor Stewart endorsed the move Wednesday night with a prescient interview with vulture: “I don’t have that gear, I don’t think,” said Stewart of the Letterman spot, which he has been rumored for in the past. “I just don’t really have it anymore. I really like what I do, not that Stephen doesn’t. But he has a real opportunity to broaden out in a way that I don’t.” Like the real Colbert, his alternate persona was raised in South Carolina, is the youngest of 11 siblings and is married. Unlike the real guy, though, the TV Colbert is a pompous right-wing pundit, a guy driven more by “truthiness” (“truth that comes from the gut, not books,” as Colbert defined it on his inaugural show) than real truth. But the “Colbert Report” host could also be serious — and sentimental. If you want to get a sense of who Colbert really is, watch the heartfelt tribute he paid to his mother, Lorna Colbert, after she died last June at the age of 92. “If you watch this show and you also like me, that’s because of my mom,” Colbert said on the air. “She made a very loving home for us. No fight between siblings could end without hugs and kisses, though hugs never needed a reason in her house. Singing and dancing were encouraged, except at the dinner table. She had trained as an actress when she was younger and she would teach us how to do stage falls by pretending to faint on the kitchen floor.” Colbert also spoke of how his mother had had to deal with tragedies, including the deaths of her husband and two of her sons (in a 1974 plane crash). But, he said, “her love for her family and her faith in God somehow gave her the strength not only to go on but to love life without bitterness and to instill in all of us a gratitude for every day we have together.” Still … Colbert — a best-selling author whom Time put on its 100 Most Influential People lists in 2006 and 2012 — did not get famous by being the real Stephen Colbert, the nice dude. And how much does most of America know about the guy — beyond perhaps his stint at the 2006 White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner, when, as his Comedy Central persona, Colbert skewered President George W. Bush (along with the media), saying, “I stand by this man. I stand by this man, because he stands for things. Not only for things, he stands on things, things like aircraft carriers and rubble and recently flooded city squares. And that sends a strong message, that no matter what happens to America, she will always rebound with the most powerfully staged photo-ops in the world.” The reception in the room was chilly, but Colbert’s routine went viral on the Internet. Pundit Rush Limbaugh was among conservatives to blast Colbert’s hiring on Thursday. Limbaugh said on his radio show, “CBS has just declared war on the heartland of America. No longer is comedy going to be a covert assault on traditional American values, conservatism. Now, it’s just wide out in the open.” For the record, Rush, Colbert has said that he will not be doing his faux-conservative persona. But the larger questions are: How many people would agree with Rush? And will they like the real Stephen Colbert any better? Email: rohan@northjersey
Posted on: Fri, 11 Apr 2014 09:01:06 +0000
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