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Stephen Colbert

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Stephen Colbert

Stephen Colbert (/kɔlˈbɛɹ/; born May 13, 1964) is an American comedian known for his deadpan style. He is most famous for his work on The Daily Show, and its spin-off, The Colbert Report. The latter is a parody of personality-driven conservative news and opinion shows, especially Bill O'Reilly's The O'Reilly Factor and Sean Hannity from Hannity & Colmes. Stephen has also been named as one of Time Magazine's most influential people for 2006.[1]

Career in comedy

Colbert is an alumnus of The Second City and had a short stint on Good Morning America [2]. He was formerly a performer and writer on Exit 57 as well as Strangers with Candy, where he also held executive producer credit. Briefly, he served as a writer for Saturday Night Live, where he later returned to voice the character Ace in Robert Smigel's The Ambiguously Gay Duo (the other member of the duo, Gary, was voiced by fellow Daily Show alumnus Steve Carell). He was a cast member and writer on The Dana Carvey Show. He also regularly performs as a voice actor on Cartoon Network's Harvey Birdman (part of the Adult Swim lineup), appeared on Whose Line Is It Anyway?, and appeared in the Mr. Goodwrench commercials for General Motors. He coauthored the novel Wigfield with ex-Strangers With Candy costars Amy Sedaris and Paul Dinello. He has provided voices for Comedy Central's Crank Yankers.

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Colbert as "Senior Washington Correspondent" on The Daily Show

Colbert on The Daily Show

Some memorable segments he has appeared in for The Daily Show have included "Even Stephvens" with Steve Carell, and "This Week in God." Memorable reports include the 2001 "break-up" of the Republicans "Singing Senators" following the defection of Jim Jeffords, and the report on Prince Charles and the British media reporting of royal family scandals through suggestive innuendo. In a few episodes of The Daily Show, Colbert has filled in as anchor in the absence of Jon Stewart, including the full week of March 3, 2002 when Stewart was scheduled to host Saturday Night Live that weekend. On one occasion, guest interviewee Al Sharpton failed to arrive for the taping, so Colbert filled in as Sharpton[3]. Since Colbert left the show, the duty of filling in for Stewart has been assumed by Rob Corddry.

Other roles

The trademark of his voicework in Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law (as Phil Ken Sebben, founder of the law firm of Sebben & Sebben, among others) is a "Ha, ha!" followed by a phrase relevant to the scene. (For example, on the subject of cookie bouquets: "Ha, ha! Cookies on dowels!")

'Stephen Colbert also puts in an excited effort playing numerous roles, such as Birdman's hypersexual boss Phil and the size-obsessed attorney Reducto. According to one commentary, he literally ran around the recording studio shouting his lines.'[4]

Colbert appeared in the big screen adaptation of Bewitched. He also starred as a forgery expert and murderer in an episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent and an annoying tourist going to see The Producers on Broadway in an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm.

At the 78th Academy Awards, several comedic video clips were played in the fashion of "The Daily Show" that were narrated by Colbert. Most of the clips were parodies of political attack ads, with the topics being the award categories and nominees. For example, one clip accused actress Judi Dench, nominated for an Oscar award, of "not being a dame" and showed another purported dame who accused Dench of "stabbing out my eye in a barfight".

Colbert portrayed the letter Z in Sesame Street: All-Star Alphabet, a 2005 video release, opposite Nicole Sullivan as the letter A.

The Colbert Report

Main article: The Colbert Report
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Colbert with his "On Notice" board, on The Colbert Report.

Since October 17, 2005, Colbert has produced and hosted his own television show, The Colbert Report, a parody of celebrity anchor news commentary shows like The O'Reilly Factor and Scarborough Country. Colbert performs the entire show in the character of a blustery, right-wing pundit. Comedy Central signed a long-term contract for The Colbert Report within its first month on the air, when it immediately established itself among the network's highest-rated shows.

In January 2006, the American Dialect Society named as its 2005 Word of the Year: truthiness, which Colbert featured on the premiere episode of the Report[5]. Colbert devoted time on five successive episodes to bemoaning the failure of the Associated Press to mention his role in popularizing the word truthiness in its news coverage of the Word of the Year, despite the American Dialect Society giving him the credit.

2006 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner

Wikinews has related news:

At the 2006 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner, which was broadcast on C-SPAN and MSNBC, Stephen Colbert delivered a satirical speech on the White House and the journalism establishment that left segments of his audience, including President Bush, mostly unsmiling.

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Stephen Colbert at the 2006 White House Correspondents' Dinner

Some of his comments included:

  • "I stand by this man because he stands for things. Not only for things, he stands on things, like aircraft carriers, rubble and recently flooded city squares. And that sends a strong message that no matter what happens to America she will always rebound with the most powerfully staged photo ops in the world!"
  • "I believe the government that governs best is the government that governs least. And by these standards, we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq."
  • "Sir, pay no attention to the people who say the glass is half empty, because 32% means it's 2/3 empty. There's still some liquid in that glass is my point, but I wouldn't drink it. The last third is usually backwash."
  • after denying that the administration was rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, "this administration is not sinking, this administration is soaring! If anything, they are rearranging the deck chairs on the Hindenburg!" [6]

Much of the mainstream media has seemingly ignored his presence at the function, including the New York Times, which did not mention his presence in their write-up of the evening.

Editor and Publisher newspaper was the first news outlet to report in detail on Colbert's performance, which it called a "blistering comedy 'tribute'" that "left George and Laura Bush unsmiling at its close" and "quite a few sitting near him looked a little uncomfortable at times, perhaps feeling the material was a little too biting — or too much speaking 'truthiness' to power". [7] E&P later reported that its article on Colbert lampooning Bush drew "possibly its highest one-day traffic total ever." [1] Some conservative bloggers opined that Colbert was out of line and unfunny.

Jon Stewart, anchor of The Daily Show, called Colbert's performance "Balls-alicious" and stated that he and his Daily Show colleagues were proud of Colbert. (05/01/2006) Like Stewart's appearance on CNN's "Crossfire" in 2004, Colbert's performance was widely circulated on the Internet. The popular blog "Crooks and Liars" drew over half a million hits in one day, its busiest day on record, after it posted a video of Colbert at the dinner. [2] A website with the url thankyoustephencolbert.org had logged about 28,000 "thank yous" within the first three days after the dinner. [3]

Personal life

Colbert was raised in Charleston, South Carolina in an Irish Roman Catholic family of French descent, the youngest of eleven children. Colbert's father, who was a doctor, and two of his older brothers, died in the crash of Eastern Airlines Flight 212 in 1974 when Colbert was 10 years old.[8] [9]

Colbert is known for being a Lord of the Rings and Dungeons and Dragons fan, a fascination that began in high school. [10] [11]

He attended Charleston's exclusive Episcopalian Porter-Gaud School. He was formally educated at Northwestern University's School of Speech and Communication, to which he transferred from Hampden-Sydney College. At Northwestern, he took acting classes, influenced by his mother, a love of Bill Cosby, and the much less conservative atmosphere compared to Hampden-Sydney. While there, he became involved in the improvisation troupe ImprovOlympic. After college, he went to work at Second City and participated in improv classes there.[12]

He is married to Evelyn McGee-Colbert, who appeared with Colbert in Strangers with Candy. She played a nurse (uncredited) in the series pilot as well. The couple has three children, all of whom have appeared on The Daily Show.

Although not particularly political before joining The Daily Show, Colbert is a self-described Democrat.[13] Bill O'Reilly jokingly called for a boycott of The Colbert Report on its sister show The Daily Show, because he thought Colbert was French[14]; however, Colbert is Irish-American and his surname is Irish (of Norman origin)[citation needed]. The association of his name as French may stem from the "Colbert Report" short that first appeared on "The Daily Show," in which Colbert, after the title is said with a silent "t," states, "It's French, bitch!" Louis XIV's reformist finance minister, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, is an instance of a historically well known French national with the same name.

Trivia

Personal

  • Colbert was an avid fantasy RPG player as an adolescent, a pastime to which he partly attributes his interest in acting. He was known to be an enthusiast of the fantasy game Dungeons & Dragons. He is also a Lord of the Rings fanatic. When Viggo Mortensen appeared on The Daily Show, a sound-clip was played of Colbert reciting the detailed lineage and personal history of Mortensen's character, Aragorn. To reciprocate, Mortensen sent Colbert a platter of Lord of the Rings characters molded in chocolate. Stewart quipped that the gift would give Colbert a "four-hour erection."[citation needed]
  • Colbert is deaf in his right ear. "I had this weird tumor as a kid, and they scooped it out with a melon baller."[15] On March 16, 2006, Colbert featured a review from Orlando Sentinel columnist Commander Coconut in his "Who's Attacking Me Now?" segment. The review stated that Coconut was unable to pay attention to anything but Colbert's ears, as his right one sticks out slightly. In a call to Coconut regarding the review, Colbert stated that the doctor also noticed it stuck out slightly when he pulled the tumor out. Colbert continued his diatribe for several minutes to the growing mortification of Coconut. After the replay of the phone conversation, however, Colbert stated that he had not in fact had a tumor in his ear.

Awards and Engagements

  • Stephen was named as one of Time Magazine's most influential people for 2006.[16]
  • On the weekend of April 29-30, 2006, Colbert was the keynote speaker at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner, provided the voice of "Saturday Night Live" co-host 'Ace' (with Steve Carell's 'Gary') and was profiled on "60 Minutes."
  • Colbert is scheduled as commencement speaker for the class of 2006 at Knox College.
  • Colbert performed, in his deadpan newsanchor voice, the opening narration of the play/film Hedwig and the Angry Inch ("On August 13, 1961, in the middle of the city of Berlin...") as a track for the Wig in a Box (2003) CD, a compilation of music from and inspired by the play/film. His narration segues into Spoon peforming "Tear Me Down."

References

  1. ^ http://www.time.com/time/2006/time100/
  2. ^ http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/04/arts/television/04come.html?ex=1272859200&en=b6c08495dff51300&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
  3. ^ http://www.usatoday.com/life/columnist/candy/2001-12-19-candy.htm
  4. ^ http://dvd.ign.com/articles/605/605194p1.html
  5. ^ http://www.vsocial.com/video/?l=5737
  6. ^ http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-04-30-bush-dinner_x.htm
  7. ^ http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002425363
  8. ^ http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=336825
  9. ^ http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/25/magazine/25questions.html
  10. ^ http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/dungeons-dragons-online/537989p1.html
  11. ^ http://filmforce.ign.com/articles/433/433111p1.html
  12. ^ http://www.avclub.com/content/node/44705
  13. ^ http://www.jerriblank.com/colbert_ew.html
  14. ^ The Daily Show, 17 October 2005
  15. ^ http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/articles/050725ta_talk_remnick
  16. ^ http://www.time.com/time/2006/time100/
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