The Colbert Report is an American satirical television program on Comedy Central that stars comedian Stephen Colbert, best known previously as a senior correspondent for The Daily Show.
The Colbert Report is a spinoff of The Daily Show that parodies personality-driven political pundit programs, particularly Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor. Like The Daily Show, The Report critiques politics and the media, but focuses on the commentary of Colbert's anchorman character, a right-wing, "well-intentioned, poorly informed, high-status idiot" inspired by cable news personalities, particularly Bill O'Reilly. The Report received considerable media coverage following its debut on October 17, 2005, for Colbert's coining of the term truthiness, which has been credited as US dictionary publisher Merriam-Webster's 2006 Word of the Year.
The Report first airs following The Daily Show at 11:30 p.m. ET (8:30 p.m. PT), Monday through Thursday and then repeats are run the following day at 1:30 a.m., 8:30 a.m., 2:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m ET. In Canada, one can watch the show at 11:30pm ET Monday to Thursday on The Comedy Network, and at 12:35, on the broadcast network CTV.
Production
Origin
Following the success of The Daily Show at the 2004 Emmy Awards, Comedy Central wanted to extend the Daily Show franchise. Colbert, Jon Stewart, and Ben Karlin (The Daily Show's executive producer) supposedly came up with the idea for The Colbert Report after watching coverage of the sexual harassment lawsuit filed against Bill O'Reilly. Jon Stewart's production company, Busboy Productions, developed the Report. Colbert, Stewart, and Karlin pitched the idea of the show (reportedly with one sentence: "Our version of The O'Reilly Factor with Stephen Colbert.") to Comedy Central chief Doug Herzog, who agreed to run the show for eight weeks without first creating a pilot.
The Colbert Report first appeared in the form of three fake commercials for itself that aired several times on The Daily Show, although the themes that would form the basis for the Report can be seen in some of the earlier bits performed by Colbert. The show debuted October 17, 2005, for an eight-week run under its initial contract. On November 2, 2005 based on the strong ratings for the show's first two weeks, Comedy Central and Colbert announced they had signed for an additional year, through the end of 2006.
Before hosting The Colbert Report, Colbert was the host of a fictional "Sunday morning chat show," The Colbert Gang, a parody of the CNN program The Capital Gang, which appeared in a segment called "Corporate Slogans" on the Daily Show. The sketch featured bluescreen subliminal messages similar to the style of "The Wřrd".
Program Format
Typically, Colbert starts each episode with teasers for the show's topics and guest, followed by a verbal metaphor that promotes the show. (For example, using a football metaphor: "Go out ten yards and button-hook to the left. I'm going to hit you with a perfect spiral of the truth. This is The Colbert Report.") The show's opening titles sequence begins, with images of flag waving, Colbert striking poses and words describing Colbert flying by. Originally, the last word to fly past Colbert was grippy, but it has changed to megamerican, Lincolnish, and, as of October 2006, superstantial. The sequence ends with a computer-generated eagle swooping towards the foreground.
The Eagle's Nest
The studio in which The Colbert Report is taped was used for The Daily Show before that show was moved in July 2005 to a new location. The set for The Colbert Report is called "The Eagle's Nest" and it reflects and facilitates Colbert's self-aggrandizing style.
The set has two main areas: the desk area, which contains the desk at which Colbert hosts most of the show, and the guest interview area to the right (stage left), where his guest for the evening sits to be interviewed. The walls on either side of the desk area contain bookshelves which house seemingly random collections of objects. From time to time, Colbert honours someone or something by adding a representative object to the bookshelves. The interview area has another bookshelf on one side, and a fireplace (with a video image of a flickering fire) on the other. On the rear wall is a false window. To the right of the interview area, beyond what is normally caught on camera is a greenscreen which is used for comedy pieces, such as "Formidable Opponent".
On the show's first episode, Colbert pointed out several of the references to himself in the set. Some of the references include: the show's name high above his desk, the shadow of the name on the wall behind, on a plasma screen on the front of his desk, on the desk itself on either side of the plasma screen, on the chaser lights at the foot of the raised desk area, and light projections on the floor of the set; the desk itself is shaped like a giant C when seen from above.
Colbert often points out his Emmy and Peabody Awards (from The Daily Show) located on a mantelpiece behind the interview area. Originally above the mantelpiece was a portrait of Colbert standing in front of the same mantel with a different portrait of himself over it. On the show's first anniversary, the portrait was replaced by one of Colbert standing in front of the mantel with the first portrait above it. Colbert claimed that the portrait will be changed every year to add another level of depth.
The graphics used throughout the show and the studio itself are saturated with American flags (including the official Colbert Report flag, named "Flagsworth") and other patriotic imagery, including an eagle's nest prop placed to the side of Colbert's desk and Bald Eagles shown in many places throughout the show. The scene outside the false window behind the interview area was originally a shot looking down over a core of skyscrapers, with the lights of a large city extending to the horizon. Early in 2006, the background changed to a view from the crown of the Statue of Liberty, with the points of its crown and its torch in the foreground. In late 2006, the show began rotating the original two designs and a new third design. The new window depicts a set of cathedral-style stained-glass windows containing images of bald eagle heads, the initials C and R, and the shield portion of the Great Seal of the United States.
In an interview with The A.V. Club, Colbert explained that much of the design for his set was inspired by Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper. "All the architecture of that room points at Jesus' head, the entire room is a halo," Colbert said. "On the set, I'd like the lines of the set to converge on my head. And so if you look at the design, it all does, it all points at my head...there's a sort of sun-god burst quality about the set around me."
Stephen Colbert Character
The fictional Stephen Colbert character drives the show's focus on "bluster and personality". The character is a "well-intentioned, poorly informed, high-class idiot" inspired by the TV personalities of Bill O'Reilly, Joe Scarborough and Geraldo Rivera. Colbert's character is right-wing, egomaniacal, fact-averse, God-fearing, and super-patriotic. He claims to be a libertarian or independent, but uniformly despises liberals and almost always agrees with the actions and decisions of George W. Bush and the Republican party. This is evidenced in one of the recurring questions that he asks to many of his guests - "George W. Bush - great President, or the greatest President"?
The character's self-aggrandizing style includes frequent promotion of an extensive range of fictional merchandising and products, including his sci-fi novel Stephen Colbert’s Alpha Squad 7: Lady Nocturne: A Tek Jansen Adventure (the title is probably in part a reference to TekWar), documentary Stephen Colbert's Hiphopketball: A Jazzebration, fragrance Stephen Colbert's Scorn, and even a jar of his own semen, Stephen Colbert's Formula 401. Colbert has also successfully incited his viewers, "Colbert Nation", to vote for him in various public naming polls: Colbert has won contests for naming a bridge in Hungary and the mascot of the Saginaw Spirit, an Ontario Hockey League team.
A Spirit #1 jersey bearing Colbert's name hangs from the rafters of the television studio, near the news desk.
Colbert's character has been described as a "caustic right-wing bully". On the interview segment of the show, Colbert frequently attempts to "nail" his guest by using various rhetorical devices to prove them wrong. However, when interviewing guests with whom he agrees, Colbert may be gregarious and ingratiating.
Despite his bluster, Colbert's character also demonstrates a notable phobia of bears, which he refers to as "godless killing machines without a soul". Bears often top his "threat downs", lists of the greatest threats facing America. This bear phobia was inspired by Colbert's real-life fear of bears as a child.
Recurring Themes
Truthiness
In "The Wřrd" on the first episode of the Report, Colbert featured the term truthiness, which he defined as "the quality by which one purports to know something emotionally or instinctively, without regard to evidence or intellectual examination." In December 2005, the New York Times selected truthiness as one of nine words that captured the zeitgeist of the year, and in January 2006, the American Dialect Society announced that truthiness was selected as its 2005 Word of the Year. On August 27, 2006, the Global Language Monitor in an unprecedented move named two words from the same show—truthiness and wikiality—both coined by Colbert, as the top television buzzwords of 2006.
Colbert has since made frequent reference to the widespread influence of truthiness since he introduced it, while carping on media accounts of truthiness that neglect to identify him as its source. Truthiness has since been discussed, several times in many cases, in the New York Times, the Washington Post, USA Today, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Chicago Tribune, Newsweek, MSNBC, the Associated Press, Editor & Publisher, Salon, The Huffington Post, ABC NewsRadio's Word Watch with Kel Richards and Chicago Reader, and on ABC's Nightline, CBS' 60 Minutes, and The Oprah Winfrey Show. In January 2006, truthiness was featured as a Word of the Week by the website of the Macmillan English Dictionary. In December of the same year, Merriam Webster announced that "truthiness" had been chosen by visitors to its website as the #1 Word Word of the Year 2006, based on online voting.
Relation to The O'Reilly Factor
Generally, the Stephen Colbert character and The Colbert Report are parodies of Bill O'Reilly and his The O'Reilly Factor, respectively. New episodes of The Colbert Report are scheduled in the same time slot as rebroadcasts of The O'Reilly Factor while Colbert rebroadcasts are scheduled during new O'Reilly shows.
Colbert refers to O'Reilly as his mentor and affectionately calls him "Papa Bear"; however, this "affectionate" name is ironic given that Colbert also has referred to bears as "godless killing machines without a soul."
When O'Reilly appeared on The Daily Show before the second episode of The Colbert Report aired, he began by commenting on the Report: "Before we get started, somebody told me walking in here, you got some French guy on after you making fun of me?" In a subsequent Newsweek interview, O'Reilly said that he "feels it's a compliment" to have Colbert parody him because Colbert "isn't mean-spirited" and does not "use [his] platform to injure people." In an open reply on-air, Colbert later said: "I like you too. In fact, if it wasn't for you, this show wouldn't exist." In another episode, Colbert said that imitation is a sincere form of flattery, and adds he is "flattered by Bill O'Reilly's imitation" of him.
The Colbert Report features a commentary segment called "The Wřrd" similar to O'Reilly's "Talking Points Memo." Like the "Memo," "The Wřrd" features the commentator asserting a political point of view with a text screen graphic next to him. However, while O'Reilly's text serves to emphasize his points, Colbert's generally serve to provide an ironic counterpoint to his character's position. Additionally, Colbert parodies O'Reilly's references to his program as the "no spin zone" by inviting viewers of his show to "take a spin in the no fact zone."
Hungarian Bridge Campaign
In 2006, the Ministry of Transport of Hungary launched an online call for public suggestions to name a future motorway bridge over the Danube, just north of Budapest. Ministry officials said the Hungarian Geographical Name Committee would choose from among the three submitted candidates with the most votes, plus suggestions from "local governments, cartographers, linguists and other experts".
Users offered hundreds of suggestions, among them the "'You Can Go To Bratislava But Not Over This Bridge' Bridge" and the "Chuck Norris Bridge," which led the polling for some time. Colbert noted the effort with approval in his "Tip of the hat, wag of the finger" segment on August 9.
He continued to implore his viewers to vote for him the following weeks. On August 22, Hungarian news sites reported Colbert had won the first round of voting with 17,231,724 votes. That night, Colbert called off his voters. He also noted that Hungary had changed the voting rules after the members of the Colbert Nation Forums developed a bot to stuff the ballot box. For the second phase, registration was required to cast a vote. Colbert also offered apologies, spending a segment honoring Hungary, its history and its contributions to the world.
On September 14, 2006 Colbert introduced his guest András Simonyi, Ambassador of the Republic of Hungary to the United States. The ambassador presented Mr. Colbert with a declaration certifying him as the winner of the second and final round of voting. The document bore the signatures of Hungarian government officials and the country's official seal. Included in the text, as read by the ambassador, were two important conditions required for the name of the bridge to be made official. First, Colbert would have to be fluent in Hungarian. Colbert retorted by pronouncing the Hungarian name Nicholas Zrinyi (incorrectly referring to Miklós Zrínyi) and híd (meaning 'bridge' in Hungarian); Simonyi quickly certified him as fluent.
The second criterion was for Colbert to be dead. Colbert protested, but the ambassador presented him with a Hungarian passport and 10,000 Hungarian Forint (HUF), noting that this would allow Stephen to enter Hungary at any time, without restriction. He also brought attention to the portrait of King St. Stephen, the first King of Hungary, on the 10,000 HUF bill. Finally Simonyi implied that the question of Colbert's ineligibility by virtue of being alive might be resolved if Colbert were to accept an invitation to visit the bridge site in Budapest. Opening ceremonies are scheduled to take place in 2008.
On September 28, 2006, it was announced that the bridge will be named "Megyeri Bridge", although this proposal didn't make it to the second round. According to the Geographical Name Committee, this name was chosen because the bridge connects Káposztásmegyer with Békásmegyer.
Reception
The Colbert Report drew an unusual amount of media anticipation prior to its premiere, including from The New Yorker, NPR's All Things Considered and Fresh Air, CNN, and The Washington Post. The New York Times alone ran three articles on the Report before its debut, and has made repeated references to The Colbert Report since then. For example, Maureen Dowd referred to Colbert's "Dead To Me" board as a metaphor in her column, saying that Oprah Winfrey "should take a page from Stephen Colbert and put the slippery James Frey on her 'Dead to me' list".
The Colbert Report drew 1.13 million viewers for its premiere episode, 47% higher than the average for that time slot over the previous four weeks and a full 98% of the viewership of The Daily Show, which itself has Comedy Central's second-largest viewership, behind South Park. Further, in 2006, the first year of the Report's eligibility, Colbert's show was nominated for four Emmys (as of August 27), including nominations for the show itself and for Colbert as host.
Averaged over its opening week, the Report had 1.2 million viewers per episode, more than double the average for the same time the previous year, when the time slot was occupied by Too Late with Adam Carolla. The premiere week of The Colbert Report also coincided with the second-highest-rated week of The Daily Show, behind the week leading up to the 2004 U.S. presidential election.
The Report rapidly became an internet phenomenon due to a vast number of clips of it being posted onto YouTube by fans. The Report subsequently made references to YouTube in jokes and launched a "green screen challenge" (where fans submitted their own manipulated clips of Stephen Colbert fighting various enemies). On October 27 2006, however, Comedy Central asserted its copyright over The Colbert Report clips that were over 5 minutes in length. Despite this setback, The Colbert Report clips that survived the cull are still getting a significant number of hits on YouTube, with more being uploaded regularly.
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