{"id":35957,"date":"2014-12-19T19:23:41","date_gmt":"2014-12-19T11:23:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=35957"},"modified":"2014-12-19T19:23:41","modified_gmt":"2014-12-19T11:23:41","slug":"stephen-colbert-retires-his-report-and-the-host-he-played","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2014\/12\/19\/stephen-colbert-retires-his-report-and-the-host-he-played\/","title":{"rendered":"Stephen Colbert retires his ‘Report’ and the host he played"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"FAREWELL<\/a>
FAREWELL REPORT. Stephen Colbert signs off as the political pundit hosting “The Colbert Report” after nine years. (Facebook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

NEW YORK — Stephen Colbert is dead.<\/p>\n

Stephen Colbert is immortal?<\/p>\n

Long live Stephen Colbert!<\/p>\n

Nine years of Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report” came to an end Thursday night along with its mythical presiding pundit, as the real-life Stephen Colbert bade the audience farewell.<\/p>\n

He was last seen gliding through the clouds in the backseat of Santa’s sleigh beside Alex Trebek (don’t ask).<\/p>\n

Before that, after offing the Grim Reaper and declaring himself immortal (don’t ask), he led a glorious singalong in the studio with a room of luminaries ranging from “Daily Show” host Jon Stewart, Andy Cohen and Big Bird to George Lucas, Arianna Huffington and Henry Kissinger.<\/p>\n

With Randy Newman at the piano, the gathered sang the poignant pop standard whose lyrics go, “We’ll meet again, don’t know where, don’t know when. But I know we’ll meet again, some sunny day.”<\/p>\n

Actually, Colbert fans know they’ll be meeting him again in a few months, this time playing himself as the new host of CBS’ “Late Show” taking over for David Letterman, who exits next May.<\/p>\n

But none of that mattered during Thursday’s bittersweet finale.<\/p>\n

At the top of the show, Colbert greeted his followers and set straight any newcomers: “If this is your first time tuning into `The Colbert Report,’ I have some terrible news. …”<\/p>\n

He announced as “a little happy news” for Colbert Nation that a raffle for his flashy anchor desk and his adjoining fireplace set had raised $313,420 for charity.<\/p>\n

In discussing his legacy – something this delightfully self-absorbed host was always happy to do – Colbert fired back against the “thinkerati” who, he charged, were questioning his impact.<\/p>\n

“But I’m not here to brag about how I changed the world,” he went on. “I did something much harder: I `samed’ the world. Does that sound stupid? Well, they said I sounded stupid back in 2005. So THAT’S the same!”<\/p>\n

“The Colbert Report” (both t’s were always silent) premiered in October 2005 as a spoof of the show hosted by Fox News Channel personality Bill O’Reilly. But the Colbert character developed into a shrewdly satirical observer, preaching the opposite of what real-life Stephen Colbert meant to put across. For this nightly display of Opposite Day, Colbert won a devoted audience of so-called “heroes,” plus critical acclaim and two Peabody Awards, which noted that “what started as a parody of punditry is now its own political platform.”<\/p>\n

An actor, comedian and improv virtuoso, Colbert had created his Stephen Colbert alter ego in 1997 as a “senior correspondent” for “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.”<\/p>\n

Then he graduated to a show of his own, where he not only exposed the failings and fumblings of government, society and the media, but he also got directly involved in these issues.<\/p>\n

He formed a Super PAC, “Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow,” which solicited donations as a demonstration of how money distorts the electoral process.<\/p>\n

In 2007, he announced he would be running for president – but only in his native state, South Carolina, whose Democratic Party voted to keep his name off the ballot. With Stewart, he in 2010 staged a “Rally to Restore Sanity and\/or Fear” as a live TV extravaganza that drew tens of thousands to Washington’s National Mall.<\/p>\n

Quite a legacy. Was it enough?<\/p>\n

“If all we achieved over the last nine years was to come into your home each night and help you make a difficult day a little bit better,” said Colbert, for a moment almost getting sentimental – “man, what a waste!”<\/p>\n

As usual, he was preaching the opposite of truth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK — Stephen Colbert is dead. Stephen Colbert is immortal? Long live Stephen Colbert! Nine years of Comedy Central’s …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":36013,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1482,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking","category-entertainment","mauthors-frazier-moore","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35957"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35957\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}