By Chris Shea, staff writer
Sadness strikes a nation. No, it’s not a geographic landmass that’s set in borders drawn on some map; it is the greatest nation of all, the “Colbert Nation.”
On Dec. 18, 2014, Comedy Central’s popular late-night satire program The Colbert Report came to an end.
After 1,447 episodes and four Emmy Award victories, Stephen Colbert brought to us one of the greatest tele- vision finales in recent history. No offense Breaking Bad. As a long time viewer of the program that brings forth political issues with a comedic spin, it was an incredible ride. From the introduction of the word “truthiness” in the very first episode back in 2005, to the 2012 presidential election, The Report had always found a way to inform and entertain.
To celebrate the end, Colbert let the president of the United States take over his show; he interviewed a dragon, and went on to sell nine years worth of memories (as well as raffling off his desk and fireplace for charity). Then came the end.
In October, Colbert promised that the final weeks of The Report would be full of “massive foreshadowing” before cutting to “Grimmy”, the Grim Reaper. It was all made clear when Grimmy was announced as the final guest of The Colbert Report.
Instead of that ending, Colbert sought immortality. Midway through the finale, after one final segment of Stephen Colbert at the helm of The Colbert Report after nine years of treating the world with his humorous satirical views. Photo courtesy of flavorwire.com one of the show’s first segment “The Wørd,”(a segment in which Colbert rants while messages appear on the sidebar of the screen, usually in a sarcastic tone) when Grimmy arrived. But during the final installment of the recurring segment “Cheating Death” (a segment which focuses on medicine and health care), Colbert got into a bit of an altercation with his guest and shot him, gaining the power to live forever.
Cut to a scene in which only one who is truly immortal can create, or at least a celebrity with a lot of connections can create; a stage filled with famous peo- ple. They all gathered together to sing a song of World War II titled “We’ll Meet Again” (a song which happened to play at the end of the 1964 film Dr. Strangelove).
Randy Newman, Jon Stewart, Bob Costas, New York City’s Mayor Bill de Blasio, and James Franco were some prominent figures to appear on the finale. It was as if there were 100- plus figures of politics and pop-culture all together like they were about to get on an album cover. And who cares if some of the guests had their miscues during the song, it was still excellent.
As someone who spent the last nine years learning and laughing to such a great program, it was a very satisfy- ing end to one of the most influential shows in television history. But don’t get too accustomed to a world without Stephen Colbert on your televisions, for he is going to be the replacement of David Letterman on CBS’s Late Show come September of 2015. Just don’t expect it to be like The Report.