WHEN YOU’RE A LEFTIST WHO’S LOST VARIETY…:
Colbert’s removal from the air, when it was announced last July, was legitimately seismic news, for the industry and for an audience who saw him as a crucial voice for the anti-Trump Resistance since the 2016 election. The timing of the news, though, meant that Colbert had an entire final season to play out with all parties, from writers and producers to host to guests, knowing that the end was in sight. (This differentiates it from the brief period when “Tonight Show” host Conan O’Brien’s job was in limbo during the O’Brien-Jay Leno succession crisis — then, the precariousness and uncertainty of the situation gave the show incredible tension and voltage.)
What has ended up making it to air has been an increasingly puffy tribute to the show’s own host. The endless bouquets being tossed Colbert’s way have started to make the studio smell a bit cloying.
Granted, these are Colbert’s guests having an emotional response to a host they liked being removed from air, and in what seems to be an unfair way, to prove new Paramount CEO David Ellison’s Trumpist bona fides amidst the Skydance-Paramount merger. It reminds one of how many other institutions are caving right now — universities, law firms, to say nothing of corporations across the entertainment industry. But the show’s focus on its own host’s misfortune has become outsized and a bit dramatic, especially because so many other institutions are in crisis: With everything else going on in the world, we have to go through a monthslong celebration-of-life for a comedian whose job is coming to an end?
Related: Sykes Urges Colbert, Pope Leo To ‘Burn This B**** Down:’
CBS’s Stephen Colbert welcomed comedian Wanda Sykes to Thursday’s taping of The Late Show for a conversation that was as ridiculous as it was wide-ranging. In the span of just a few minutes, Sykes urged Colbert to team up with Pope Leo and “burn this bitch down” on the night of his final show, demanded that TSA agents be paid while omitting that the reason they go unpaid is because of a Democrat shutdown, and helped Colbert resurrect a wildly misleading talking point about Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s food spending.
Sykes implored, “So, the last show what you going to do? You’ve got to go the hell off the last show, like, burn this bitch down. You got to—I mean—”
She also quipped, “I heard they turning it into a Walmart, so don’t worry about it. So, yeah—I mean, you always bring the fire every night. But that last show has to be like, like destruction. Like, yeah.”
Colbert destroys CBS on the way out? Wanda, your terms are definitely acceptable.