INTERVIEW: Stephen Colbert Talks Late Show Transition, Final Daily Show Ahead Of Debut
SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — I sat down with Stephen Colbert in a studio in Los Angeles. We talked about his new show, and what David Letterman told him.
We began where Colbert left off; his heartfelt final appearance on the final The Daily Show With Jon Stewart.
SAM SHANE: I want to ask you first of all about that moment on Jon Stewart. It seemed so genuine.
STEPHEN COLBERT: It was, it was, ahhh.....
SHANE: And so out of character in so many ways.
COLBERT: Well, out of character for him in so many ways; for him to stay there on stage while somebody was saying thank you to him. One of the producers called me and said we got your bit about Frodo and we're all good with that. But nobody's saying thanks to him. Would you say thanks?
SHANE: Yeah.
COLBERT: I said I'd be honored but you know he's gonna flop about like a fish on a dock if I start doin' it and he said, yeah but do it anyway. (laughter) I was so nervous, I was so nervous, 'cause I was literally afraid he would leave stage, you know. That little chair dance we did, I felt like a rodeo clown.
SHANE: You were going to get him.
COLBERT: Just keep him, just to keep him. I thought I'd have to tie him down to make him listen. But it was a joy. It might be the favorite thing I've done on the Daily of all the times I've been on there, was to have the chance to finally thank him. Because it's true, he wouldn't let anybody thank him. He would say, you don't owe me anything, everything you got you earned, you did it and so all of us wanted to.
SHANE: Did you recite that in your mind or did that just come out on air?
COLBERT: Ah, no, I recited that in my mind. I thought about what I wanted to say days before and then did my best to remember it when got out there.
SHANE: Have you talked to Letterman about the show?
COLBERT: Yeah, Dave was so sweet. He was really generous with his time. A couple of weeks, maybe a week and a half before he went off the air I went over to his office, we sat down, had a couple bottles of water, and I asked him a bunch of questions about doing the show and at one point—I'm the original Letterman fan—I said this to Dave; he started his first late night show in '82, that's when I started college. I was his core original audience. We would leave parties to come home to make sure we didn't miss your show. He said at the time we had no awareness of that. He said NBC didn't want us to know we were doing well, we didn't know anybody liked the show, we thought we were going to be cancelled at any minute. But we really had a lovely conversation for about an hour and a half. I asked him a ton of questions about the theater and the process of the show and everything and I said, "I'm sorry, do you mind me asking you these questions?" And he said, "I don't mind at all, no one ever asked me those questions before."
SHANE: Really?
COLBERT: That's what I said. "No one's ever asked you these questions?" And he said, "Stephen who would know to ask me those questions?"
SHANE: That's a good point.
COLBERT: Who would care what the answer is, which I thought was a very gracious thing to say; a nice passing of the keys.