The Late Show with Stephen Colbert (2015-????)

CBS is rolling out all the platforms for the show today, including this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFtam2eAkfo

The continued bits of shaven beard falling on the hot dog is grossing me out, but that's probably intended.
Sort of a weird tone about the whole thing, though. If this show ends up completely low-key and strange like Craig Ferguson's show was, I'll love it!

Also, some podcasts.

lol

https://www.yahoo.com/tv/stephen-colbert-late-show-video-david-letterman-120634160835.html

d'oh sorry

tone is v Strangers w Candy so = YES

this is going to suck

My hopes and dreams of They Might Be Giants as The Late Show house band are dead. Jon Batiste is cool, though.

http://time.com/3907726/jon-batiste-bandleader-stephen-colbert/

huh. something about him has always bugged me, but i look forward to seeing lots of New Orleans musicians on, hopefully.

https://twitter.com/kylebuchanan/status/606538376242528256

And Conan's bandleader is Italian and Kimmel's is Latino.

The last new host younger than Letterman/Conan to have a white bandleader was Carson Daly—that was Joe Firstman—and he was HORRIBLE. I'm all for affirmative action in late night band hiring, because we've seen the alternative and the alternative is not good.

Oh wait, I completely forgot about Seth Meyers and his band of 90s indie rock burnouts (+ Marnie Stern) who play the limpest rejoinder music on tv.

Fred Armisen is all races

you misspelled RAPISTS

i can def. imagine someone in HR hiring fred armisen and then joyously ticking off every box on the "diversity in the workplace" survey.

http://morningafter.gawker.com/stephen-colbert-paints-his-nails-talks-to-eminem-on-pu-1715231700

8^O

The colbert public access thing was good, esp liked the news item on the local yelp beef

I would rather watch him interview local nobodies instead of celebrities.

It could have taken a mean turn but he did a good job keeping the show human and giving the guests space to have fun with the thing too. He seems like a pretty generous-spirited guy.

http://www.gq.com/story/stephen-colbert-gq-cover-story

why do writers exist

We were talking about the logistics involved in pulling off something like this, and how great it felt for him to be improvising in front of a camera again, and the curious tensions that popped up in his interview with Eminem. And then we got onto the subject of discomfort and disorientation, and the urge he has to seek out those feelings, and from there it was a quick jump to the nature of suffering. Before long we were sitting there with a plate of roast chicken and several bottles of Cholula on the table between us, both of us rubbing tears from our eyes.

Ten years ago, the country was palpably more afraid and angry.

haha waht

that's probably true

In 2005 9/11 was a much fresher and more frightening memory and the ongoing catastrophe that was the Iraq war gave plenty of cause for anger.

it SHOULD be fucking terrified right now

That's a hard way to live, morbs. There are too many terrors to take them all into account all the time, and most people are grateful to have a few days of respite from them, even if it is by turning a blind eye.

why do writers exist

whatever, it's a good article

fluffy

kinda weird to watch his first show because usually first shows (and first weeks and months) kinda suck for late night guys, but i've been watching colbert for so long that it's tough to give him the new guy break. show had it's moments, good and bad.

lol at jeb! but that was gonna be lol no matter what

ITS

his logo looks like the 700 club or something

Seems like it's about half Colbert Report and half typical network late night show. Works for me.

forgot it was tonight

the non colbert report parts were pretty awk though it feels like he had a lot of meetings with very panicky cbs execs who don't know how to function in this strange jimmy fallon world

i know it'll get better but yeesh

turned it off during jeb that was tough to watch

Eh, I thought he handled the parts of the show that he's not been doing for the last 9 years already pretty well. Clooney's not traditionally a great talk show guest (he seems like one on paper, but in reality he's kind of a stiff). Jeb! Bush was as disengaged and awkward as I'd expected he would be, so no surprise there. Stephen may handle the interview segments better when he has guests that better fit what he's going for.

i generally detest Clooney's personality, but he had a fine moment on Letterman once. "...We're doing Ocean's 12.... (big grin) Because Solaris bombed."

I liked the bit where he paid tribute to "the man who has owned that stage for the last 22 years...I'm talking about Biff Henderson".

I remember during that awesome last Tom Waits performance hoping the moment wasn't ruined for Dave because he was handcuffed to George Clooney

It was a good show. The Trump and Jeb bits could've run as is on the Report. I don't get people who immediately write him off because he's on a network now, or act like network comedy is somehow always inherently inferior to cable. I'm seeing that on Twitter about Colbert's show and it's just kind of silly.

Yeah, I mean he's at 11:30 on a broadcast network and going against The Tonight Show and Jimmy Kimmel. CBS isn't going to allow him to go full Colbert with the position he's in. Should they? Yes. But they aren't going to.

I really hope the first half of the show is spent at the desk every night Report-style. If that sticks, the rest is gravy.

If there's one thing I think they should be OK dropping, it's the standing bit at the start.

Unless he continues to spot his turns like that.

Caught the end of this, it was pretty entertaining. Fun music performance at the end. I like the 'new' character.

I did like Clooney's fake movie skits, it kind of felt like something Letterman would have done.

Since all of my reality seems to be on a 20 hour tape delay I'm just watching this now. I like that the band leader plays a melodica.

Hoo boy, second night was a little bit rougher.

Kendrick fucking slayed it though!

Yes and yes.

I just watched Kendrick's performance and holy shit

the sketchy CBS stream i was using blew up just before he came on so i missed it.

He could definitely do the touring circuit that Steve Martin + Martin Short and David Sedaris do. I could see him taking that route more than Letterman or Conan did.

A far-right classmate I disassociated with in 2016 used to claim Colbert was racist for reasons I don’t remember (something to do with Ted Cruz who she had no problem with) and seemed to get infuriated pretty easily by him. Obviously quite a few nuts felt the same, which is one reason I’m sorry to see the show end.

I always thought it was funny that people get so incensed by Colbert, I'm pretty sure he's personally shoehorned prog references into some of the scripts, he's a bona fide dork. score one for us guys I guess

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncOCu2ErLe4

I always thought it was funny that people get so incensed by Colbert, I'm pretty sure he's personally shoehorned prog references into some of the scripts, he's a bona fide dork. score one for us guys I guess

― frogbs

greatest ally since Sherman Helmsley

imagine living in a grey future dystopia where merest mention of hocus pocus by focus is taboo

sir, you may take my ludicrously fast dutch yodeling from me when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers. god. what would dutch yodeling _feel_ like to the touch? wait, hold on, i have synesthesia, i can answer that. cold, clammy, greasy. wow, i mean, i love listening to hocus pocus by focus but it feels kind of gross to the touch.

the funny thing is that looking at thijs van leer feels like touching grass. fresh, new-mown grass. peat and dew. yeah, i wasn't expecting that either. life. life is full of mysteries.

With that in mind, who came up with "heavy metal goes to college"? They used that line in a Late Show/Colbert sketch while discussing King Crimson, but I forgot it was actually in John Sayles's Return of the Secaucus Seven (applied to prog in general, including Crimson)...however, there was something about the delivery that made it seem like the character in the film was repeating some common belief. Was that something people said in the '70s?

Jon Stewart went pretty nuclear on CBS for this last night

Colbert said last night that CBS wouldn't let him broadcast an interview with Texas Senate candidate James Talarico: https://variety.com/2026/tv/news/stephen-colbert-cbs-blocked-james-talarico-interview-fcc-equal-time-1236665220/

Talarico is Brazilian slang for a dude who's into married or committed women. A bit like Jody Ryder in the old R&B songs.

I am unsure as to the relevance here but you never know.

Trying to play the "Equal Time" card during primary season is bullshit. Technically Talerico is just running against Jasmine Crockett at the moment, and I imagine CBS would just <love> having her on air again.

https://variety.com/2026/tv/news/cbs-byron-allen-late-night-stephen-colbert-comics-unleashed-1236709162/

CBS sells both late night time slots to Byron Allen

I guess they're basically turning back the clock - IIRC Arsenio's show was airing on CBS affiliates via the same way, and when he was poised to dominate late night in the wake of Leno's takeover of the Tonight Show, he instead lost his 11:30 ET/10:30 CT slot to Letterman and the newly created Late Show.

Arsenio aired on our Fox affiliate, but I guess it was different from market to market.

Comics Unleashed is no better than infomercials.

yeah Arsenio was syndicated so his show aired on different channels (and times) in different markets, but a lot of them were CBS stations that all switched to Letterman

IIRC Arsenio's show was airing on CBS affiliates via the same way

No. Byron Allen’s model here is buying the airtime outright and airing literally two-decade-old spakfilla in order to sell adspace. Comics Unleashed shoots new episodes once every ten years and adds them to the rotation: amortising the already-low production costs down to functionally zero. (He only made the third season after McDonalds settled a $10B nuisance lawsuit by agreeing to buy ads…)

The game show is a nightmare. Adam Carolla fake laughing at Jon Lovitz riffing with Jamie Kennedy.

Shocked me that the Hollywood Squares reboot isn’t any better so maybe I just hate comedy.

(watches two pieces of dogshit) “do I hate good things?”

Yeah, I didn't realize how crappy Allen's show really was. This really is fucking insane - Ellisons are totally fine bleeding loads of money just so Bari Weiss can destroy CBS News (not to mention their credibility), but they threw away the #1 show in late night for this shit.

(#1 for the time slot that is, but shows airing earlier shouldn't count.)

Two really nice performances in the past week of songs the artists recorded a half-century ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ca3VI4aGDjc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrV6sMUeiSg

Conan mentioned in his interview with Arsenio that he got to weather the tough early years at Late Night due to his demo. If he wasn't doing well with 18-35s, he would've been yanked.

Of everyone currently on the air in late night, I'd guess Fallon still wins that demo, but maybe it's Stephen? Either way, the entire pie is only a fraction of the size it was in 1993.

Occasionally the youtube autoplays autoplays a Colbert monologue while I’m in the kitchen and I can’t imagine anyone under 65 who has not been kicked in the head by a horse choosing to watch it for humour

Yeah idk his Comedy Central run was all time but of what little I’ve watched of the late night bros he (shockingly tbh) ended up being my least fave, besides that dipshit Fallon. Hard to watch.

Earnest late-night TV is the fucking worst. I miss Craig Ferguson.

new episodes once every ten years and adds them to the rotation: amortising

apparently the ep order for 2025-26 was 132. so for 33 weeks from September, 4/10ths of the episodes aired have been new, and from sometime in May it will be ten repeats a week.

The first time Allen bought time on CBS, he was not only scabbing during the writers strike, he was airing a similar ratio of “new” episodes, but that had been recorded seven years previously.

2015 - 2026

A good discussion between Wesley Morris and my buddy Jason. Starts off with SNL, veers into Colbert, then Jason finds a clever way to tie the discussions together:

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/21/podcasts/colbert-snl-late-night-tv.html

Well there ya go

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acJgA0XofLc

Some context:

https://latenighter.com/features/colbert-public-access-only-in-monroe-eminem/

https://latenighter.com/news/stephen-colbert-returns-to-only-in-monroe-after-late-show-finale/

Monroe Colbert is magic <3
I love that he went back!!

The helium balloon cancer conversation was fucking hysterical

He closed out his interview with the two women by offering them the opportunity to guest host Comics Unleashed, before FaceTiming the real Byron Allen, who readily agreed.

Wishful thinking, but it would be hilarious revenge if Byron Allen just invited Colbert back for EVERY episode and gave him free reign to do whatever material he wanted (political or not) because he bought the time and CBS can't do shit.

Monroe Colbert is going to be legendary. absolutely no reason to not show this to yr kids on a lazy Saturday morning.

My mom didn't like Colbert but CBS going MAGA has pushed her to the local NBC news and she's discovered the horrors of Jimmy Fallon.

It was so weird to watch them all together on their Strike Force Five sendoff for Colbert. The other four don't even pretend to like Fallon, they just had to have him there or it would've been A Thing. I'm not saying the other four are great human beings necessarily or great real-life mates or anything (although I know Seth Meyers and John Oliver are), but Fallon can't even fake it convincingly for the camera and they either can't or are not willing to help him look more normal.

I say this as someone who is as invested in American late-night television as it's possible to be from Ireland: I feel people need to maybe dial it back a bit. It's not like Colbert died.

if Byron Allen just invited Colbert back for EVERY episode

I mean he can invite Colbert to be on every one of the 365 existing rerun episodes that will air for the duration of his 12-month lease, with just as much sincerity as he invited the Monroe women

xp Conan getting pushed off the tonight show was the big moment for me. it sucked but led to some absolutely classic bits that wouldn't have happened otherwise (bugatti veyron mouse, etc.).

I say this as someone who is as invested in American late-night television as it's possible to be from Ireland: I feel people need to maybe dial it back a bit. It's not like Colbert died.

True, tho I think there’s a cohort of upper middle class media professionals whose idea of political things is just reduced to over-emphasizing symbolic gestures and signaling, so they over-invest in this kinda disconnection. I mean, regular political efforts have been degraded and stymied for decades, so shit is down to this.

I say this as someone who is as invested in American late-night television as it's possible to be from Ireland: I feel people need to maybe dial it back a bit. It's not like Colbert died.

True, tho I think there’s a cohort of upper middle class media professionals whose idea of political things is just reduced to over-emphasizing symbolic gestures and signaling, so they over-invest in this kinda disconnection. I mean, regular political efforts have been degraded and stymied for decades, so shit is down to this.

Dammit, double post

It's not like Colbert died.

true, but he started a YouTube channel

Colbert going off to write Hobbit movies is this generation's TNC going off to write Captain America comics.

honestly I'm glad he's doing something else. I love Colbert and think he's an incredible comedian capable of a lot of nuance but I thought he was just a bad fit for the Trump era. mostly because he just comes off too nice and the people in charge deserve nothing but utter contempt and scorn. Jimmy Kimmel on the other hand comes off like he genuinely hates Donald Trump and is willing to get lowbrow and nasty which I think is what political comedy needs to be right now. still pretty chilling the way everything went down, especially given how much the current administration is gloating over it

"Nice" wouldn't be my approach to Trump either, but it also makes more sense to me when different shows competing in the same time slot take a different approach from one another - it's great that they're in solidarity against this shit (well, maybe not Fallon), but if you want a broad reach, you'd want to cater to different tastes as well and some people want "nicer."

Colbert went after Trump in every episode. Yeah his tone was different from Kimmel but that’s because they’re different comedians. Their tone is different on every topic.

yea I mean that's just my opinion, I mean it was CBS's #1 show so obviously a lot of people disagreed, personally I couldn't help but notice how much better he was when *not* talking about Trump.

I don’t think he even mentioned that schmuck on his final show.

Thinking about how "Stephen Colbert" on the CR felt like a spot-on parody back in the Bush years, but in today's conservative world he'd be seen as a RINO cuck.