Wednesday, December 17, 2014
By Verne Gay
Newsday (TNS)
After nearly 10 years, 1,448 editions and an impact on the political zeitgeist that is well-nigh incalculable, the joke is finally over. “The Colbert Report” ends Thursday (11:30 p.m. on Comedy Central), much as it began — the longest-running gag in TV history. It was a gag-within-a-send-up, directly inspired by another legendary media figure — Fox News Channel’s Bill O’Reilly, who got the joke but never entirely appreciated it.
We can all perhaps sit here today and say what “The Colbert Report” and its earnest, supercilious, vainglorious namesake host meant in words — one word in particular, “truthiness” — and deeds (the creation of his own satirical SuperPAC several years ago, as a prominent example).
In fact, this run — which actually began as a character on “The Daily Show” long before the October 2005 launch — was never about takedowns or the creation of a ratings juggernaut. It was about making fun of stuff, certainly, and inverting the notion of American triumphalism, which involved the creation of an “idiot” — Colbert’s term — who embraced that triumphalism without fear of contradiction or fact.
Born 50 years ago into a large, Catholic, Republican family in South Carolina, Colbert suffered great tragedy as a child — the deaths of two brothers and his father in a plane crash. As he tells the story, on the way home from the funeral, one of his sisters made another sister laugh so hard that she fell onto the floor of the car. In the crucible of that tragic-absurd moment, he decided he wanted to make people laugh, too.
In a bizarre transformation of comic tautology, Colbert became “Colbert,” or someone who believed in what he believed with such utterly fervent bloviating conviction that some people weren’t entirely certain where the one Colbert ended and the other one began.
He testified before Congress, and also addressed a quarter of a million people at a rally in Washington and President George Bush at the White House Correspondents Dinner in 2006 — all in character.
During a “Talks With Google” interview two years ago, he explained the bizarre balancing act: “You put yourself in the story. Anything that looks like me in that story is probably bull.”
But after 10 years, the real Colbert thinks the show has finally run its course. In 2015, he will become the next host of CBS’ “Late Show,” succeeding David Letterman.
It is what makes this week’s ending so intriguing, and next year’s transition so exciting. After all, Stephen Colbert is about to play perhaps the hardest role of his life, or at least the one role he has never played before: himself.