A Super Straight Guy

By Elana Berkowitz and Amy Schiller, Campus Progress. Posted July 29, 2005.

As one of America's finest voices in fake news reporting, Stephen Colbert's straight guy blue suit, arched eyebrows and deadpan seriousness have become highlights of Comedy Central's The Daily Show where he is the senior correspondent. As cable news increasingly becomes a sad parody of itself, The Daily Show, an actual parody show, remains profoundly funny and totally relevant.

Prior to joining The Daily Show at its birth in 1996, Colbert spent years in the trenches of the sketch comedy world, including a stop at Chicago's famed Second City, where he met Paul Dinello and Amy Sedaris. The three of them went on to create the Comedy Central series Strangers With Candy, a really twisted take on the after-school special, starring a former junkie prostitute turned loserish high school student. This fall, a Strangers with Candy feature film will be released.

Meanwhile, Colbert will be starring in his own Comedy Central show called, naturally, The Colbert Report. (Remember, the "t" in the name is silent because, as Colbert himself explains, "It's French, bitch!")

When you were developing your 'super straight guy' look and sound, which actual media personalities did you model yourself after?

COLBERT: First of all, I am a super straight guy. I grew up in Charleston, South Carolina, and I am perfectly comfortable in blue blazers, khaki pants, Brooks Brothers suits and regimental striped ties. It's just genetic. I love a cocktail party with completely vacuous conversation, because I grew up in it.

But in terms of who I channel, my natural inclination was Stone Phillips, who has the greatest neck in journalism. And he's got the most amazingly severe head tilt at the end of tragic statements, like "there were no...survivors." He just tilts his head a bit on that "survivors" as if to say "It's true. It's sad. There were none."

Plus, his name has that sort of Republican porn star vibe to it.

Exactly, if it were Stone Fill-Up then it would really be a porn star name.

And then I also used Geraldo Rivera, because he's got this great sense of mission. He just thinks he's gonna change the world with this report. He's got that early-'70s hip trench coat "busting this thing wide open" look going on. So those two guys. And Peter Mansbridge, obviously.

Naturally.

[Loud crunching sounds.] Wait, wait, I gotta do something for a second. [More loud crunching sounds.]

Are you hiking through the mountains?

Yes, actually, I'm on the side of El Capitan. I'm about to summit, but I just realized there's no one on belay. No, actually, I just had to get out of my car to get a ticket at the parking garage. What were you asking?

You do "This Week in God," which is one of our favorite segments. You're from a South Carolinian religious family and you are a church-goer yourself. Why did you choose to focus so heavily on religion right now?

We used to do "This Week in God" only once a month, but if there was room on the show we could do it every week! It has become acceptable for court decisions to be based on the Gospel. There's so much religion in public life. It's a religious pandemic. It's everywhere. It's not a needle in a haystack. We throw away stories every week. I know we're not a secular state like France which has it in their constitution, but boy I wish our founding fathers had been a little clearer in that First Amendment.

We are living in a pretty absurd time. Are there ever any news incidents that were so absurd you can't make them funny?

Well, obviously real tragedy, like the London bombing, is off limits. No one wants to do comedy about that. But I would say there's almost nothing that can't be mocked on a certain level as long as it doesn't involve loss of life or deep human tragedy. I don't think we ever looked at something and said that's too ridiculous to make more ridiculous. Contrary to what people may say, there's no upper limit to stupidity. We can make everything stupider.

Elana Berkowitz is the editor of Campus Progress; Amy Schiller is an editorial intern.

Liked this story? Get top stories in your inbox each week from AlterNet! Sign up now »