Stephen Colbert, the fake right-wing jingoist, was the subject of hundreds of eulogies while still alive. The first round came in April, when it was announced that “The Colbert Report” would be ending its run so that Stephen Colbert, the real middle-ground comedian, could take over the “Late Show” at CBS. The obits returned—on a larger scale—this week, marking the final four episodes of the show. But it seemed that Thursday night’s finale would bring with it the real funeral, and that Colbert the comedian was going to kill off Colbert the character.
As a late-night talk show, “The Colbert Report” was partially exempt from the current mood of finale mania, one in which fans demand that beloved TV shows (and even podcasts) stick their landings or else tarnish all that had come before. The show’s narrative had been written in discrete bits over the years—all the stunts and awkward interviews and the mock products and creepy animal interactions. Even so, Colbert and his writers and producers had fun with the idea that they would have to meet the expectations of fans demanding the ultimate form of closure. In October, with thirty-two episodes remaining, Colbert promised that the final weeks would be full of “massive foreshadowing” before cutting to “Grimmy,” Death himself, turning over an hourglass then pointing his skeletal index finger back at the host. “What could that mean?” Colbert asked. The implication was clear when the guests for the show’s last week were announced: on Thursday’s finale, Colbert would be talking to Grimmy.
Instead, immortality. Midway through, Grimmy arrived, but, in the last installment of a recurring sketch called “Cheating Death,” Colbert shot and killed the Grim Reaper, gaining the power to live forever. Cut then to a scene that only an all-powerful demigod—or a man with a lot of connections—could pull off, a stage full of singularly famous people. They gathered to sing the Second World War standard “We’ll Meet Again.” (Which, incidentally or not, played at the end of “Dr. Strangelove.”) Randy Newman, Bill de Blasio, Grover Norquist, James Franco, a magazine editor. It was as if a hundred-plus prominent figures in the pop-culture consciousness and in the Twitter feeds of the show’s target audience had suddenly appeared on a modern version of the “Sgt. Pepper’s” album cover. Henry Kissinger, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Barry Manilow, Big Bird, Samantha Power, Willie Nelson. Why not? (And who cares if some of them were missing their cues, and looked as if they were singing the wrong words?) And then a coda: the faux Colbert was not dead, nor retired, but off for a joyride with some mythical heroes of the American imagination: Santa Claus, Abraham Lincoln, and Alex Trebek (Canadian, but with dual citizenship). “The Colbert Report” was a weird, unlikely show from day one, and it ended that way.
The sing-along was a sentimental flourish for a show that has mostly mocked the idea of sentiment, or sincerity. This week, Colbert’s message to fans has been that it is O.K. to be sad, but not too sad—after all, it’s only the television business. On Tuesday, he briefly renamed his show “The ColbDewar’s Repewars,” in honor of a sponsor, Dewar’s scotch, proving that it’s never too late for some satirical product placement. (One of the Colbert’s legacies is that companies have realized that it is good for business to be mocked by the best.) On Wednesday’s show, there was a segment in which Colbert sold off the memorabilia that he had acquired over the years by hosting a yard sale in New York.
Before the celebrity send-off, Colbert was his usual grandstanding self, taking a moment to address much of the coverage that has accompanied the show's final week on the air. He declared that he was indeed, as many have suggested, hugely influential and innovative, or as he put it, a “transformational historical figure.” But what Colbert’s persona emphasized was not that he had changed things, but instead that he had “samed the world.” Nine years after the show débuted, another Bush is running for President, Americans are defending torture, and we’re sending troops to Iraq. “When this show began, I promised you a revolution,” he said. “And I have delivered. Because technically one revolution is three hundred and sixty-five degrees right back to where we were.” It was a hilariously grim observation of the world and a distillation of the Colbert persona—as much as he bloviated about shaking things up, he was above all a mock champion of the status quo.
And, perhaps, not enough has changed in the political-television landscape since “The Colbert Report” came on the air. While the show will be remembered as being an essential part of a golden age for liberal, activist comedy, “The Colbert Report” also ends during a period that is the golden age of Fox News. And the two are not really in meaningful conversation, because their audiences mostly have nothing to do with each other. (The appearance of some conservative faces in last night’s celebrity farewell notwithstanding.) And, despite the feeling of immense catharsis that liberal comedy has provided to fans—beginning in the Bush era but also serving a vital, if different, purpose during the Obama years—if we were keeping score, Fox would probably be winning. Colbert is gone and Bill O’Reilly will be on tonight at eight. Colbert will probably be remembered for coining the word “truthiness,” but “samed” is the sharper and sadder bit of satire.
But it is a mistake to talk about “The Colbert Report” primarily as a political show. Colbert needed Fox News as a starting point for his gonzo character, just as Jon Stewart needed it early on as a target for his rage. But, of the two, it was Stewart who was serious about trying to dismember and defang the Fox worldview. Colbert, meanwhile, played his hyperbolic satire mostly for laughs. Rewatching the highlights from the show’s run this week, it can’t be exaggerated just how consistently funny Colbert has been, night after night, for nearly a decade. So many of his best moments have been marginally connected to his political persona. The common factor is that he’s always been willing to be the biggest, most enthusiastic and brazen fool in the room in order to sell a joke and make his guests and his audience happy. If the laughs sometimes came at the expense of the show’s ideological coherence—Colbert’s politics were more about idiocy that conservatism—that was ultimately O.K. Colbert was indeed a zealot, but his unwavering faith was always, above all else, in comedy.
