Stephen Colbert: Beyond Truthiness Read Online Free PDF Page B

diners while trying not to retch. “Leftover Beatle Memories” played off the then-recent Beatles Anthology documentary. Carvey played a bouncy Paul, Smigel a snoring Ringo, and Colbert a mustachioed George with a Liverpudlian accent: “I killed a man once. I think it was a stagehand. He looked at me funny, so I had to. It was all taken care of by the record company, so no one found out.”
    But other bits seemed poorly timed. Was America ready for a President Clinton nursing baby animals from plastic breasts? And was Taco Bell, the show’s sponsor, ready for a dancing taco presenting Carvey with a big check, and calling him a “shameless whore?” Apparently not. Taco Bell pulled out after two shows; just seven more aired, and Colbert was unemployed again. Today, The Dana Carvey Show is seen as having been ahead of its time, and it is credited with boosting the careers of Colbert, Carell, Louis C.K., and the screenwriter of Being John Malkovich, Charlie Kaufman. But Carvey later called it “probably the most bizarre variety show in the history of American television.” Apparently, he missed the various shows hosted by Sonny and Cher.
    Then came what Colbert called “the year where I wasn’t doing anything.” The crash of the Carvey show killed TV sketch comedy. America in the mid-nineties was in no mood for cynics. The economy was booming, the president was popular, and a dazzling parade of digital technology was changing entertainment, leisure, and life itself. The relative “good times” of the Clinton years spawned bland comedy. Viewers were happy with Friends , the Single Guy , and Home Improvement . At the box office, comedies were safe and retrograde – 101 Dalmatians , The Nutty Professor , and the latest Jim Carrey vehicle featuring another Jerry Lewis shtick. Colbert, stuck in New York with a wife and child, grabbed any gig he could get.
    In his year of “not doing anything,” Colbert: (a) helped Robert Smigel turn the Carvey show into an animated superhero spoof, The Ambiguously Gay Duo , that found a home on SNL ; (b) contracted with Good Morning, America to do short humorous pieces - pitched twenty but shot just one, a straight-faced visit to a Rube Goldberg design competition; (c) did a voiceover on The Chris Rock Show ; (d) got a cameo on the Michael J. Fox sitcom, Spin City ; (e) did a commercial for a Nebraska bank; and (f) landed a humor piece on the Op-Ed page of The New York Times .
    The Times ’ piece played off news of a rocket car that had set a land speed record of 763 mph. Colbert and Paul Dinello speculated on a future with “a rocket car in every driveway!” Milk deliveries, ambulance runs, paper routes – all at top speeds of 700 miles per hour, but only if the government provided the infrastructure. “Clearly, the future belongs to the long, flat, sandy straightaway. . . . And once we’ve paved the oceans, there will be no stopping us.”
    Selling himself as never before, Colbert went to plenty of auditions but landed no permanent gigs. With his wife at home and his daughter beginning to toddle, “I thought I made a huge mistake in what I decided to do for a living.” He saw little chance of starting over. “It wasn’t like I was going to go to law school. It was too late. The die was cast.”
    Colbert’s older siblings had carried on their father’s professionalism, becoming lawyers, executives, trade specialists. But young Stephen Colbert was on the verge of becoming just another Second City veteran who aimed to be the next Belushi, but went off to New York and disappeared. His demeanor could have allowed him to become a TV anchorman in some mid-level city, or he could have ended up as the funniest father at kids’ birthday parties. He might have been an amazing used-car salesman. All three seemed more likely than the remote chance that this hybrid of the straight-laced South and Chicago improv stages would become the most celebrated wit in America.
    But deep in the