The Penske Media Death Star has at long last noticed what we Normal People picked up on years and years ago: how Stephen Colbert’s insufferable ego and self-regard destroyed the Late Show franchise.
Over at Penske’s far-left Variety (Penske also owns Deadline, The Hollywood Reporter, Rolling Stone, Indie Wire, Billboard, and the Golden Globes, among others), you will find a headline that those familiar with these sweaty sycophants never expected to read…
“Stephen Colbert’s Long ‘Late Show’ Goodbye Has Gone From Resistance to Ego Trip”
“Watching one person beam while receiving laurel after laurel doesn’t make the argument for his show’s relevance,” writes Variety. “Frankly, it’s not very good TV, and — for this relentlessly political host — not in touch with the concerns of people who have been turning to ‘The Late Show’ for its political perspective.”
Obviously, Colbert turning the Late Show into Resistance TV is itself the height of ego. Still, we can’t expect the vacuum-sealed Variety to recognize that, and even if it did, we can’t expect them to have the moral courage to report it.
“Earlier this week, the actor John Lithgow appeared on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert and did something that guests on the show have been doing a lot lately: He paid extensive tribute to the host,” Variety complains.
Lithgow wrote a gushing poem and read it on the air to Colbert. Lithgow declared Colbert’s monologues “sublime masterworks,” labeled him a “national treasure,” and urged him to run for office in 2028. Already, Bette Midler has appeared on the Late Show to rerun her famous tribute to Johnny Carson by singing a version of “Wind Beneath My Wings.” Drew Barrymore has already reprised a G-rated version of her famous 1995 birthday striptease for David Letterman for Colbert.
But here’s the thing…
Colbert is still on the air until May 21!
He has more than three months to go!
Midler didn’t sing for Johnny until his final broadcast.
“What has ended up making it to air has been an increasingly puffy tribute to the show’s own host,” complains Variety. “The endless bouquets being tossed Colbert’s way have started to make the studio smell a bit cloying.”
No kidding.
And this is no surprise. For years now, Colbert has revealed himself as a man with a raging ego, a prideful narcissist and serial liar with zero class. As a faithful watcher of Carson in those days, although he referenced his upcoming retirement now and again, it wasn’t until those last few days that the Tonight Show became a farewell tribute — but this was an earned farewell to a man who’d brought America together at 11:30 p.m. for 30 years and retired on his own terms. Colbert is a divisive jerk who pimped out the Late Show to the Democrat Party, who puffs himself up as the king of all virtue, and who got himself fired for driving a once-universally beloved franchise right into the ground.
And now, with months and months to go, Stephen Colbert is already using the Late Show as a forum to pay tribute to the person Stephen Colbert loves the most: Stephen Colbert.
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