How Will Stephen Colbert Exit CBS? ‘The Colbert Report’ Co-Creator Sounds Off
What To Know
- Ben Karlin, co-creator of The Colbert Report, believes Stephen Colbert will leave CBS’s The Late Show gracefully and with gratitude, rather than causing controversy.
- Karlin suggests CBS’s decision to end Colbert’s show was politically motivated, despite the network’s claim it was for financial reasons.
- He notes that Colbert has had the opportunity to end the show on his own terms, maintaining his integrity and staying true to his comedic voice.
As the former head writer of The Daily Show and the co-creator of The Colbert Report, television producer Ben Karlin has known Stephen Colbert for more than 25 years. And he doesn’t think the comedian is going to go “scorched earth” on CBS when the network ends The Late Show With Stephen Colbert next month.
“He’s a classy guy. He’s a classy guy,” Karlin said of Colbert on The Daily Beast’s Obsessed podcast. “I think he’s capable of killing with kindness. I think what he doesn’t say is sometimes better than what can be said. But he is just a class act.”
Karlin pointed out that, recent developments notwithstanding, Colbert has many reasons to be grateful to CBS. “At the end of the day, they paid [Colbert] a ton of money,” he said. “He got to do a version of the show that he wanted to do for a long time. He got to bring a lot of the people from [The Colbert Report] with him, and everyone’s done really, really well. It’s a beautiful theater. I think it’s been a privilege. I think he would say that, too.”
Amid the network’s recent overtures to conservative viewers and Colbert’s ongoing criticism of the Trump administration, Karlin thinks “100 percent it was political” for CBS to decide to end the late-night show. (In a statement at the time, the network insisted the decision was purely financial.)
“Obviously, it’s a little icky the way things are shifting right now,” Karlin said. “It doesn’t feel good just in terms of comedy and just the political environment of where these worlds used to feel somewhat a little more separated.”
But Karlin also noted that late-night shows just aren’t profitable, and at least Colbert has had months to bring his show to a close.
”He gets to go off, justifiably, not as a martyr, but certainly as someone who kind of stood his ground and stayed true to who he was,” the producer observed. “The fact that there is this built-in sunset for him — to me, it’s kind of a dream come true, but I don’t know if he would necessarily say it that way.”
The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, Weeknights, 11:35/10:35c, CBS
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