Wow. That was good.
Tonight was the series premiere of “The Colbert Report”, a “spinoff” of the best show on television: “The Daily Show”. Stephen Colbert was easily the best of the “correspondents” on TDS, and he certainly put his best foot forward tonight. Despite some awkward moments and obvious jitters, the show had my wife and me rolling.
Stone Phillips made a lovely first guest. Stephen’s impersonation of Stone’s famous nodding was priceless. And I thought I was going to lose it watching their “gravitas faceoff”, as they dueled each other reading fake news copy. Where else will you get to hear Stone say, “In the interest of fairness, this reporter admits to having a piercing in a similar location”?
Stephen will be missed on The Daily Show, but I have a welcome new addition to my Tivo’s “Season Passes”. While I may have lost a correspondent, I’ve gained an anchorman.
house of haug 
We heartily agree.
And yet I’m so full of questions and trepidation.
I wonder whether Colbert’s schtick will really work four nights a week for 20 minutes a night.
Stewart’s show works because he’s being himself, and because he has a team who can mix it up a bit so that he doesn’t have to bear the comedy load all by himself.
But Colbert is clearly playing a character (albeit one he’s got nailed), and I wonder if that will wear thin after a while because it isn’t genuine. And at least for the first episode, there’s no real sign of a team.
The Stone Phillips interview and gravitas-off was brilliant. Stone was almost a metaguest. I’m curious to see what happens with other guests who maybe don’t have the same senses of humor about themselves.
In the end though, I hope this works out. I’m giving up This Week in God, after all.
I was laughing throughout the entire episode. It felt Colbert was channeling a modern day Ron Burgendy with too much coffee (this is a good thing). I’m curious how much of the Stone Philips interview was improvised. Stone did seem caught off guard a bit. But he is an amazing television personality, so that could have been part of the act.
I caught last night’s episode. It was still funny but seems to be losing steam.