Photo Courtesy: Johndhackensacker3d
The much anticipation debut of the Late Show with Stephen Colbert almost didn’t happen.
Episode one for Colbert had colorful interviews with guests George Clooney and Jeb Bush, but both in which were noticeably cut and edited. Like me you wondered why, among others, the cleverly funny moment in the Bush interview where Colbert had Jeb change his political answers to sound more “Trump-like”.
Well, our curiosity was answered the next night as Stephen’s opening monolog on episode two explained how the first show nearly didn’t air.
“The show almost didn’t get on air last night,” Colbert said. “It took us a while to cut the show down to time, and then when we tried to send it to the network, so they could show it to you on air, the computers kept crashing.”
Colbert continues by explaining that nearly ten minutes before the set (and inflexible) air time there was no guarantee the show would air.
However, the show made it to air and re-runs of the Mentalists were quickly missed.
Throughout the four shows, Colbert kept his status as political comedian. Shows one and three had guests Jeb Bush and Joe Biden, respectively. Donald Trump’s first mention came in the first show with comparisons to Trump jokes and consuming Oreos. Most guests, like Clooney and Scarlett Johansson, didn’t need any product to promote. Musical guests ranged from Toby Keith to Kendrick Lamar. The show’s own band featured Jon Batise and Stay Human takes over as Colbert’s sidekick.
The show remained incident-free, after number one, through the week. It seems this will be the national television version of the Colbert Report. Without being the same conservative character played out in the Report, he continues to tackle political blather from two different sides. The difference will be celebrity mixed in with a musical guests appearing every night.
If you are looking for something like the Letterman years, you were disappointed. There will be nothing close to a Letterman/Leno battle as Colbert expressed his gratitude to the gifts he received from other network hosts. Colbert still has some of the comedy styles performed by Letterman, but he doesn’t need to be just like Letterman. Colbert has the comedic reputation that stands alone and his political satire will be his formula for late night TV.
